Thinking about the unthinkable

It is a sad coincidence that in the week I decide to begin writing about the acceptance of life as it happens, I received word from a friend and former boss that his wife has been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and has been moved straight to hospice care. In a space of two weeks, she has gone from the normal, active life of a relatively young retiree to her deathbed.

It is one thing to learn to cheerfully accept the speed bumps that slow us down on the road of life, bumps like job loss, or misbehaving children, or divorce, or other mundane crises and problems. Some of these bumps are worse than others; some slow us down quite a bit, but in time we generally accelerate again and move on. But what happens when the speed bump turns out to be a brick wall that will not only slow us down, it will end our race?

I believe it is impossible for any of us to know ahead of time how we would react if we or a close loved one received a similar diagnosis; until we actually face that reality, we will not know the emotions our minds are capable of. My friend and his wife live in another state, so I can't participate in their reactions, but based on the CaringBridge posts he has made, I admire my friend's brave acceptance of the situation, and the celebration of her life he is sharing with his wife and their close family in her final days. Appreciating what they have had, not lamenting what they do not (and will not) have: that is a path to amor fati.

Such situations, in addition to being shocking and sad for those of us only peripherally involved, can also serve as inspirations to us. For they remind us of a fact of life that we try to ignore by filling our lives with frenetic activity: life has limits. We cannot do everything we want, and we will all face the same fate someday; the only question is when.

"...for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart." (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

Dwelling on that fact can depress us; that is why try hard not to think about it, and generally succeed. Think about the lifestyle magazine covers you see: "Feel younger!" "Look younger!" But if you take time to contemplate it, the fact of your eventual demise can also motivate you: because my days are limited, each one has value; because it has value, I should appreciate each day as it happens, one day at a time. It is regrettable that we take notice of many blessings of our lives only in their absence, when we can't get them back.

Therefore I should take notice of the advantages of my current job, because I could lose it; I should appreciate the noisy, unceasing clatter of children in my home today, because someday all too soon they will be out of the house on their own; I should focus on the blessings and opportunities I have today, not on what I wish I could have tomorrow.

I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)

What do you have to be thankful for today? To whom should you express your love and appreciation today?

From desperation to appreciation

School started this week, and I find the infectious optimism of elementary students at the beginning of a school year to be a welcome relief from the relentless pessimism that has come to define everyday American life in recent months. There is much for a student to be excited about: the joy of reunion with good friends; the tactile pleasure of crisp new notebooks and freshly-sharpened pencils; the emotional thrill of learning the way to new classrooms in familiar buildings. All of it tempered only slightly by the prospect of what is sure to come: nightly homework, regular tests, and weekend projects.

The optimism is a welcome contrast the relentlessly pessimistic stream of news that now flows seemingly every day: of jobs lost, house values declining, investors fleeing, wars expanding, and politicians arguing. Certainly, anyone directly affected, who has actually lost a job, or defaulted on a mortgage, or been injured in a war, has reason to complain and worry. But I've noticed that much of the fretting around me comes from people who have not been touched in any of those ways. For some reason, they just like to worry and complain.

When earlier this year I came across the Latin phrase amor fati (literally, love of one's fate), it struck me as a good attitude to adopt in uncertain times. In the latter half of the twentieth century, it became too easy for many of us to seemingly control fate by controlling our lives: changing jobs, changing houses, changing spouses, even changing faces (or at least noses) at a whim. We didn't have to accept fate, we could change it. Life could always get better.

I don't think adopting amor fati means giving up on optimism; it means embracing actual experience. Your life is what it is, not what you wish it to be. Celebrate it! Human nature is to push higher, farther, and faster. Do that, certainly, but accept that sometimes your push forward won't work. Things do not always work out how we plan--that means our plans were bad, but it doesn't have to mean our lives are bad. Setbacks are not the end of the world; they are a part of life, and we should use them to yield not desperation but appreciation. It is a joy just to be alive, and that realization is the beginning of optimism.