A Life Worth Living
Driverless cars have a few kinks to be worked out, but they are here. As a mom of a son who deals with a vision impairment, this news makes me pretty happy since we have grieved the chance he won’t be getting a driver’s license. How nice will it be for him to independently get from place to place?
Thinking of driverless cars got me thinking of driverless human beings. A driverless me. Driverless motherhood. I easily go on autopilot when out my need to survive I mindlessly move through my days and existence. Meaninglessness and mediocrity, going through the motions, missing the magic of the most important moments and connections of my life (self, others, nature, & God).
Henry Nouwen put to words this situation I too often find myself in when he wrote, “It is so easy to let what needs to be done take priority over what needs to be lived.” That’s the whole not being present rabbit hole I fall into more often than I care to admit.
Two things snap me out of driverlessness and back into my ideals.
1. I live aware. Aware of the big picture, I apply what I learned in human development, a masters-level course I took when my firstborn was an infant. Erik Erikson, a developmental theorist, named the final phase of the lifespan integrity vs despair. Basically, when we look back over our lives we will either feel really good about how we lived our lives or be filled with anguish. What took priority? Who took priority? What did we chase? What did we sacrifice? Did we make a difference? Do we find integrity in how we invested our lives and into what we poured our time and energy?
Integrity vs Despair. This is the thing makes an older person give off a vibe of regret (which can be experienced as cynicism, sadness, or anger) or a vibe of being content and fulfilled (which can be experienced as an underlying peace, even in the midst of the uncertainty of being nearer to the end of life).
With the heads up about integrity vs. despair and where my head and heart would be going in old age, I decided to backfill my life the best I could. I thought about how I wanted to feel about my life at the end of my life and then started figuring out things I wanted to accomplish, trying to make choices that support my priorities regarding relationships and what I consider a meaningful life.
2. The examined life. My well-being is contingent up on my spiritual maintenance. So every morning I make a point to journal and meditate, seeking to improve my conscious contact with God. As a mom of five, this gets interrupted almost every morning, especially since we added Moose (the 15 week-old furry brother). In spite of the interruptions I still make the attempts at meditation. Here’s why:
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
I’m pretty sure Socrates said this aware of what existed for us toward the end of life well before Erikson created his developmental theory. I want to blog about this more for next time, but basically, if we go through our life driverless, we are going to miss the cues and clues that we are off course. It’s like our climbing a ladder, with our efforts always taking us somewhere, but getting ourselves to the top only to realize we had the ladder leaning against the wrong building.
Self-examination protects us from that sort of despair so that when we get to life’s later stages, we celebrate the accomplishment of having lived a life worth living.
I look forward to adding to this for next time. Until then, be thinking of what you can do to:
1. Start backfilling your life based on the concept of integrity
2. Consider how to add an element of healthy rhythms of examination to your life
Dive Deeper…
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