This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help baby boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and purpose in life after they retire. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available on Amazon.com. Click here for her website: LeeGaleGruen.com
CHITCHAT: My new book on the topic of senior reinvention will be published soon. The title is the same as this blog and my public lecture: Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose after You Retire. The book will contain all the material from my public talk as well as more than six years of posts from this blog. I will announce in this forum when it is published and available for purchase.
Now, on to my blog:
Ah, patience. A little research finds it first mentioned as a virtue (aka moral excellence) by an ancient Roman poet, Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, in the fifth century. Subsequently, others took it up such as in the narrative poem, Piers Plowman, thought to have been written in the 1300s by William Langland. Later that same century, Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales had something to say about it: “Patience is a high virtue… but virtue can hurt you.”
Some seem to possess more of it and some less. I don’t think a lot was parceled out to me upon my birth. However, as I age, someone seems to be slowly siphoning off what little I started with.
It’s hard to stand in line for my turn; it’s hard to sit in my car at a traffic signal which never seems to nod in my direction; it’s hard to deal with people who seem to be blabbering inanities. I’ve displayed my askew glare and stomped out of stores where I had to wait my turn in the queue just to ask an employee where to find an item, hustling back to my car and driving home so I could calm down.
Our life has become so complex and so jostled by the sheer number of human beings on the earth that the competition for absolutely everything is intense. Here’s a typical scenario that happens on the telephone extrapolated from the earlier brick and mortar example:
You call your target, wade through an interminable menu, and finally speak to a live human, all just to be told that you’re not at the right place whereupon you are transferred elsewhere. Of course, the elsewhere requires another menu, another wait, and yet again another staff member who may pass you off to someone else. This game frequently becomes a cycle where you end up back at the first employee. Truth be told, I’m guilty of the telephone equivalent of the aforementioned “stomping out of the store.” I’ve been known to slam down the proverbial receiver, at least in my head. In reality, I now push the off button on my cell phone extra hard–that’ll show ’em!
Is it me or is this one more affliction brought on by the aging process? I envy those who seem to be able to placidly wait their turn. It seems that the delay for so many gratifications in our daily activities has become longer and longer, or is it that I have become more and more impatient? I suspect it’s a combination of both.
Where can I go to get a re-charge of patience? I need more than I have to cope with the reality of today’s planet. On the other hand, Chaucer seems to think that particular virtue falls into a category that can be harmful. Maybe he’s onto something. Thanks, Geoff. Seems I’ve been taking care of myself all along.
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Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar on Visual Hunt / CC BY-ND
My cousins, Gail and her husband Paul, visited me some months ago and brought me a lovely bonsai plant as a house gift. You can see my reflection in the window as I’m taking a picture of my new darling after having just given it a haircut. Yes, miscellaneous shoots were breaking out of its manicured silhouette and upsetting the continuity of the design.
Our lives have become constrained by too many decisions we are called upon to make every day just to get through it. It encompasses everything from what to eat for breakfast to what to put on for bed. That, of course, spills over outside of the home.
What is your reason to be alive? We all need one. It’s what motivates us to keep going, even when we’re down, depressed, and life is just a bummer.
About eight years ago, I decided I needed more horses in my life, although I’d never had much to do with them. I remember a few times as a girl going to a stable and riding a horse, hanging onto the saddle horn for dear life. When I reached seniorhood, I realized so many members of the equine persuasion are calm, gentle, and take life as it comes. I definitely wanted more involvement with that description and philosophy.
At the beginning of the current shelter-in-place lifestyle, some coveted items became inordinately expensive and hard to find. Who would’ve thought that the dilemma of how to wipe one’s (fill in the blank) would become a major focus during lockdown time? A few months ago, my son saw a sign in a window on the block where he lives:
I called and spoke to a staff member who told me that particular model was out of stock. The next model up was an additional $150.
I’ve been having Zoom nightmares. They’re not the waking up screaming kind. They’re the waking up wrung out kind. I’m right back to the type of anxiety dreams I had in college. A recurring one was having to take a final exam only to find I couldn’t locate the place where it was being held. Running between rows of buildings, up and down staircases, and in and out of rooms with time ticking away, I’d wake up agitated and distraught. Of course, I was unable to fall back to sleep
In this time of Covid 19, shelter in place, rising unemployment, and social unrest, it’s easy to get into the habit of staying indoors for long periods of time. However, such behavior becomes isolating. We humans are symbiotic creatures and need the stimulation of others. Real time connectivity with folks is gratifying.
