This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com
Now, on to my blog:
We use our bodily parts in various ways to hold the objects necessary in our daily life. We balance glasses on the bridge of our nose and the tops of our ears. We hold up our pants by cinching belts around our waists. We strap watches around our wrists. We tie young babies to our backs. As the child grows larger, we hoist it on our hip bone to straddle our body for balance as we carry it.
I came upon this young woman who took the concept to a whole new level. She had ear stretchers in her earlobes. That is a style now among many of the younger generation.
The stereotypical waitress’ answer to always looking for a pen or pencil is to shove it through her hair to rest on the top of her ear. However, this young woman’s innovative answer was to push it through the large hole in her earlobe. (Click here and scroll down to read my blog of June 5, 2017, “Generational Differences,” which features “gauges” as earlobe stretchers are called.)
Adaptability can be brought into all aspects of our lives: our jobs, our studies, our relationships, our parenting… Always doing things the tried-and-true way doesn’t allow for expansion.
Think about things you’d like to change about yourself or do differently. Focus on how you might morph to enhance your life. Make a conscious effort to imagine the steps you can take. Compile a to-do list using a computer, or even the old-fashioned method of pen and paper, even if you don’t keep your writing implement as handy as the appendage dangling from your ear.
Strive to make your life fuller and more satisfying. Create ways to stretch yourself in lots of areas, not just your earlobes.
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I was on an amazing trip to Africa a few months ago. One day, we stopped at a giraffe rescue compound. Up close and personal was their philosophy. The staff even gave us food pellets to feed to our long necked friends. What a privilege to be able to touch such a beast.
A pinball machine is an apt metaphor for life. From our birth, we are propelled down a jagged, unpredictable path strewn with obstacles. When we hit one, it bounces us in a different direction until we meet up with a new impediment. From there, we are pushed along yet another route and on and on. As we weave our way along, we encounter experiences which we would not have had but for the random jumping between points.
We are all impatient, some more than others. We are concerned about how future events will unfold. We want our agendas to be realized immediately. However, living in a world of billions, that’s usually impossible. We must wait our turn in the queue. We must rein in our impatience. We must plan our activities in advance to allow plenty of time to reach the goal or outcome we seek.
I was trying to download the Uber app onto my cell phone. It was a new learning curve for me, but I wanted to be hip like everyone else and try out the popular ride sharing concept.
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we feel out of place; you know, that awkward, uncomfortable sensation because we don’t quite fit in. We try to adapt, but all we can think of is, how do I get out of here? It’s particularly hard in a situation where everyone else seems to know each other, to interact comfortably, and we are the odd man out.
Ah, Monet. We hung out together recently. That is, Monet did the hanging–on a wall at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California, with me in attendance and in awe. As you can see in this photo, I failed to dress for the occasion–a faux pas as Monet would say in the French of his origin. Yes, I stressed primary colors that day forgetting that my pal Monet is definitely a secondary colors kind of guy.
