Longer life means more self-examination

Throughout most of my life I worried about what I would be when I grew up, and now in my twilight years, I am content with who I am and have no serious complaints. But I do need to develop different rules to live by for the next 20 or 30 years, even though my hopes and expectations are tenuous at best. I suppose the real questions I face concern what is of value at present that I want to retain, and is there a way to ensure my continued comfort and security? Of course not.

Through the years of coping with the vicissitudes of life, I came to realize I could not change the world or the people around me in any significant way, so I reasoned that the best thing I could do to improve the quality of my life was to change into the kind of person I thought I ought to be. During 50 or 60 years of ups and downs, I was more or less forced to make needed changes that enabled me to mellow out and become reasonably content, but even so, I feel restricted by remnants of the past.

In a manner of speaking, I used religion, social programs and the sage advice of old-timers as a lifeboat to cross the most treacherous currents in the river of life. After safely navigating through troubled times and hard lessons, I held fast to the lifeboat and even pulled it to the top of this incline where I am essentially alone in a different dimension of human life. The sage advisers I once relied on are gone, and I realize that my trusty lifeboat has become a cumbersome impediment that is no longer useful. If I am to succeed in this unfamiliar stage of life that has no history and no traditional guidance from established cultural norms, I need to develop a survival strategy of my own and get rid of this boat and all the old ideas that served me so well in the past.

An extended lifespan that is coupled with good health is a relatively new experience to humanity, and hopefully, our increased longevity will bring about an expansion of our emotional potential. Perhaps a re-examination of those interests, talents and passions that were neglected in our struggle to survive will reveal a higher calling and offer a broader understanding of life that is more realistic than religious hopes, and is more worthy of pursuit than capitalistic ideals. Those of us who experienced the turmoil of adolescence, the blunders of young adulthood, the crises of mid-life, and the uncertainties of early retirement are no longer strangers to reality, therefore, we are more able to pursue the challenges that may be available to certain individuals who survived a full and active lifetime.

Art Carney lives in Wasilla.