Being Old

This is my first experience of being old.  All throughout life I have had to figure out how to be the friend, the romantic partner, the son, the brother, the father, the spouse, and all without an owner’s manual or a safety net.

Now as I have entered this new phase of life, this new social role, I somehow was expecting to have more answers, but once again I realize that there are no guidelines, just this new experience that can only be lived out on life’s stage, as this entity, as it happens, every day.

Many feel that they have found the answers to the rights and wrongs, the do’s and don’ts, of their social roles, and then intently press them down upon others, expecting them to conform.  How foolish to believe that the utter diversity of this human experience has specific criteria that can be applied universally to all beings.

There is no path, there is no teacher.  The one who follows any existing path or clings to one teacher or ideology for ultimate guidance, has stepped off their own divine and unique pathway of life, and promptly loses their way.  The so-called struggles and entanglements of life only exist due to our inflexible guidelines that we ourselves have created and blindly adhere to.  

Life is our path, life is our teacher.

Life flows, things happen, and we can either flow with life or expect it to meet our idealized list of specific criteria.  To flow with life means to enjoy the journey.  To adhere only to your own expectations of what life should be, only brings suffering.

To be old is just another phase of my existence, a stage of life to experience with freshness and openness, discarding the superficial ideas that attempt to define my unique experience.