Living for Unremarkable Moments
I truly enjoyed Anne Lamott’s latest opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled, “In older age, living for the unremarkable Moments”. It seems to be written for people that have retired and are now trying to enjoy the new normal at that age. Nevertheless, I think we middle-agers can draw out a lesson or two here so that we begin to savor our lives now rather than waiting until the next phase.
I know many elderly people live lonely, frightened lives, so I show up. Mother Teresa said no one can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love, and that is all we can do.
No one will question the wisdom of Mother Teresa. In my life, I’ve found that doing small things with great love is one way to feel happy. It’s wonderful to do big things that change the world. Small things can also change the world because all the big things are made up of small things done with great love.
Think about that and how it applies in your life.
Saying no to things that deplete or bore us becomes an essential skill. To me, nothing is more wonderful than to crawl between the sheets again, with a book and the cat, and to say our prayer: “Oh, well.” In the dark, if we are lucky, we begin to drift off to that other place.
Beautifully written in a way that captures the essence of the feeling, right? Anne is a wonderful writer.
Now that I’m almost in the my third decade in the workforce, I’ve come to appreciate my personal energy level. It’s not just that I’m older and don’t have the boundless energy of youth. No. Even twenty-somethings need to think about energy because we all go through levels of energy throughout the day. Something things are energy draining, some people are energy vampires. Others seem to fill us up like if through a charging cable.
Can you identify things in your life that deplete or bore you? It’s within your power to do something about them. You should devote some energy to managing them down so that you have more energy for those things, big or small, that you can really do with great love and help to change the world.