In researching and writing this book, I have learned a simple truth: Some people like growing old, and some do not. I had e-mailed an old friend, Stephanie, asking her how she felt about aging, and she replied, “Let me tell you how getting older is for me. I’m fifty-three and I love being the age I am! I’m doing a job I really like, I can wear what I want, and I don’t have to worry what people think! I’m grateful for the life I have now.”
That was Stephanie’s short list of reasons why she liked growing old. My own list isn’t long. I love being healthy; given my medical history, that is a big deal to me. My son, age thirty-seven, has a successful career and a rich social life, and that makes me happy. I am happily married to my wife of forty-two years, who has always been there for me no matter what.
I have asked any number of people what they like about aging, and I have heard many different answers:
DOING WHAT I WANT
GRATITUDE
HAVING WEEKENDS AGAIN
THE KIDS ARE OUT OF THE HOUSE
TIME TO TRAVEL
A CHANCE TO PURSUE MY DREAMS
VOLUNTEERING
GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY
A SMALLER WARDROBE
TIME TO SEARCH FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE
NOT HAVING TO LOOK ATTRACTIVE ALL THE TIME
SPENDING MORE TIME WITH THE PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT
Sometimes people just exclaim, “This is the happiest time of my life!”
That’s essentially what Stephanie said too. But I knew that she hadn’t always been so happy. What made her so buoyant? I looked forward to a face-to-face meeting so I could hear her story.
We met in a coffee shop and I could see she looked different. She was wearing hoop earrings and a turquoise and silver necklace. Her hair was longer too. The last time I saw her, her hair was done up and she was wearing a pantsuit. When I commented on how relaxed she looked, she said, “I am now.”
“Now? What changed?”
She laughed. “A new job. A new life. A new way of looking at things.”
And she proceeded to fill me in. She and her husband had split up two years before. And just recently she had quit a job that she had hated for years.
“What was that like?”
“For about five minutes I felt great. Then it hit me. I was making good money, I just got divorced, we’re in the middle of a huge recession, and I just quit.”
“That took courage.”
She laughed. “Right. Then I went into the bathroom and threw up.”
“What happened next?”
“I got a job in graphic design for half the money, sold my corporate clothes on eBay, and started shopping in consignment stores. Oh, and I got a dog. My ex never liked dogs.”
“Lots of changes,” I said.
“I was lucky; things worked out,” Stephanie said.
Things change. For the usual person this is very discouraging. You cannot rely on anything. You cannot have anything. And you will see what you don’t want to see. So you [have to] change the foundation of your life. “That things change” is the reason why you suffer in this world and become discouraged. [But] when you change your understanding and your way of living, then you can completely enjoy your life in each moment. The evanescence of things is the reason you enjoy your life.3
Shunryu Suzuki
Stephanie hadn’t read Suzuki’s book—she wasn’t even a Buddhist—but her story is a good example of Suzuki’s teaching. Stephanie’s life wasn’t working. Things were changing for her, and not in a good way. She was indeed finding it very discouraging. Suzuki described her situation well when he said, “You cannot rely on anything. You cannot have anything. And you will see what you don’t want to see.”
But Stephanie found, as she said, “a new way of looking at things.” She left behind being a victim of change and became an agent of change. The changes she made in her life looked risky to an outsider. By any ordinary standard, her life was less secure than before. But by embracing change and taking charge of it, she found a way to enjoy her life.
In 2010, psychologist Arthur Stone of Stonybrook University conducted a large study, polling 340,000 people on happiness, and found that people in their fifties are generally happier than those who are younger. He said, “People’s overall satisfaction with their lives showed a U-shaped pattern, dipping down from the early thirties until about the age of fifty before trending upward again.” Why are older people generally happier? The researchers weren’t sure, but they had some ideas: Maybe older people are better at managing stress than younger ones simply because they have more practice at it. Another theory was that “older people might focus less on what they have or have not achieved, and more on how to get the most out of the rest of their lives.” That all made sense to me. While you are building a career, taking care of small children, dealing with the stresses of jobs and relationships, life can indeed be difficult.
When I read about this study I called Stephanie and asked her if she knew why she felt happier now than when she was younger, and she told me that she had come to realize that wanting what she couldn’t have was getting her nowhere. “All these things I wanted were driving me crazy. Now I’m not so interested in wanting what I can’t have.”
That’s what Suzuki meant when he said you have to “change the foundation of your life.” We can’t escape life’s essential problems, but we can, in Suzuki’s words, “change our understanding” about them.
These ancient insights are being confirmed by a new research specialty called “happiness research.” The Stonybrook study is one example, and there are scores of others. Taken as a whole, this research has identified three factors that tend to encourage lasting happiness: “reframing” difficult experiences (looking at things in a new way, as Stephanie did), generosity, and gratitude. Generosity and gratitude are familiar concepts; what is revealing about the research on them is the measurable increase in contentment not just in the receiver of these gifts, but in the giver as well. “Reframing” is a bit more difficult to define, but basically it means to shift your attitude about a situation from pessimistic to optimistic—in other words, the power of positive thinking. It really works! The Dalai Lama has said, “If science disproves some aspect of Buddhist teaching, Buddhism will have to change.” In this case, Buddhism doesn’t need to change, because it teaches these same causes of happiness: looking at things in a new way, generosity, and gratitude.
The opening for Christina’s gallery show was jam packed. It took me several minutes to work my way through the crowd to the refreshments table, and even longer to spot Christina, who was in the back surrounded by a group of admirers. I started a slow tour of her bright acrylics, mostly still lifes and sunny landscapes, and noticed that several of the paintings already had red dots next to them, indicating that they had been sold. It was not until I was halfway around the room that I noticed the sign: 15 PERCENT OF PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED TO THE FOUNDATION FOR ART IN THE SCHOOLS.
I waited for the crowd to thin out until I finally had a chance to talk briefly with Christina.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. “I’m glad you could see it.”
I congratulated her on her artistic success and on her generosity in sharing her proceeds with our local nonprofit. She told me she was “paying forward,” helping artists coming up, as her high school art teacher had helped her many years ago. “I’m trying to acknowledge the connection between past, present, and future. Everything is connected,” she said.
Then I asked about Alan. I hadn’t seen him at the show. “He’ll be here,” Christina said. “He had a track meet.”
“How are things going?” I asked.
“I guess you could say I’m happy and he’s working on it.”
Christina hadn’t given me her list of the reasons she was enjoying her aging, but “giving back to the community” and “doing what I want” would probably be on it. Like Stephanie, she was taking risks and moving her life forward. I wondered whether Alan and their marriage would stay abreast of it.
Christina’s comment that “everything is connected” was a message from one meditator to another; as a Buddhist I knew what she meant. She was referring to the core Buddhist teaching that we don’t exist by ourselves, but depend for our existence on everything else. This is what Shunryu Suzuki meant when he once said, “Wherever you are, you are one with the clouds and one with the sun and the stars you see.”
When I was young I loved hiking in the mountains, where I did feel one with the clouds. I liked being away from everything and being surrounded by quiet. I would imagine how nice it would be to live in the mountains, away from cities, smog, noise, and clutter. Then one day as I was working my way down a steep slope, I suddenly realized how foolish I was to think I was alone. I couldn’t even take one step without air to breathe. My canteen was full of water from a nearby stream. My backpack was full of food I had bought at the health-food store. All my friends knew I was here and were awaiting my return. If I didn’t show up, they would come looking for me.
“Everything is connected.” It’s a basic Buddhist teaching, and I’d studied it in books, but it wasn’t until that moment in the mountains that it hit home to me and I realized that it wasn’t just a concept; it was my life. Without other people, without plants and animals, without air and water, there would be no me. It was more than a feeling of being connected. I realized that the world and everything in it were all of a piece.
Without her encouraging teacher, there would be no solo show for Christina. Without a close circle of friends who supported her every step of the way, there would be no new life for Stephanie. The research shows that generosity is a cause of lasting happiness, but it doesn’t say exactly why. The full explanation may be complex, but we know how we feel whenever we act generously. Generosity renews our connection with the larger world and with the reason why we are here at all. Our spirits are lifted and we are more willing to take risks.
When Stephanie’s friends advised her to “hang on to that job; hang on for dear life!” she didn’t listen; she went ahead and took that risk. She sensed a different lifeline, a deeper connection. She explained to me, “I had friends; I had skills. I studied graphic design in college and I’d kept up in the field. I knew my friends in the design business would help get me started. I wasn’t alone. It was still a risk, though. I still get goose bumps when I think about it.”
When Suzuki spoke of “changing your understanding and your way of living,” he was acknowledging the role of taking risks, in life and in spiritual practice. This too is fundamental Buddhism. Siddhartha the Buddha took a risk too when he walked out on his life of privilege. According to the traditional story, he was twenty-nine years old (middle-aged for his time and place) and living in his palace when he decided to give all that up for the robes of a spiritual wanderer—one of history’s great career changes! Siddhartha’s could be anyone’s story. Each of us comes to moments in life when we can choose either to retreat or to take a leap. It seems harder to leap the older we get; aging tends to make us risk-averse.
Christina’s path seemed different, but not really. An artist takes inner risks. Failure and obscurity are always possibilities. Many artists never have a one-person gallery show in their entire career. Stephanie and Christina were about the same age, and though they had never met, they were fellow travelers nonetheless. Each in her own way had found a path to enjoy life in every moment.
Emma was also an artist, twenty years older than Christina, with penetrating blue eyes and a bright spirit.
“How do you feel about aging?” I asked her.
“I feel grateful.”
“For anything in particular?”
She showed me her hands, gnarled and swollen from arthritis. “I’m grateful to still be able to paint. For a long time I didn’t think I would.”
She also told me that two of her friends had recently died, another was in the advanced stages of cancer, and she was having to change the way she painted because of the difficulty she had holding the brush.
“When I was young I took so much for granted. I never thought about growing old. Now that I am old, I think of that saying, ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ If I knew then what I know now, I would have lived my life rather differently, I think. But that’s the way life is. We never know what we know until we know it, and then there’s no point looking back.
“In some ways I think my painting is better than ever, because I have had to simplify and stick to essentials. I can’t use my technique as much.”
We were sitting in her studio, and she pointed out a recently completed work, a watercolor of a sunset over coastal mountains. “Before, I would have worked to create more texture, more detail strokes in the heather and the coyote bush. Now I can’t. But it doesn’t matter. Every sunset means another day of life. That’s the gift of this painting for me.”
Gratitude was at the top of the list of why Emma could enjoy her aging, but so was her search for meaning. When she painted a sunset, it was not just a sunset. When she picked up a brush, it was more than a brush.
Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, has written an excellent book about aging titled The Gift of Years, and I thought of Emma when I read this passage from it:
We have every right to live in gratitude for all the stages of life that brought us here, for all the memories that give us great joy, the people who helped us get this far, the accomplishments we carved on our hearts along the way. These experiences cry out to be celebrated. They are no more past than we are. They live in us forever.
We usually define gratitude as how we appreciate things. Yet when my Buddhist teacher Suzuki spoke of gratitude, he said, “Gratitude is this moment.” Some people thought this was because his English wasn’t so good, but I don’t think so. He knew what he wanted to say. Gratitude is not just appreciation; it is part and parcel of our being here. We don’t need to pluck gratitude off the shelf and draw it close. It is already close.
These days I walk for two reasons: for exercise and for gratitude. I am particularly taken by the dogs I meet. Dogs are so alive and alert, and they all seem so happy to be out. The very smells in the air are enough to make them grateful. How easily satisfied they are! How can I be more like them?
A gratitude walk is for noticing, and it can’t be done in a gym or on a treadmill. It needs to be in nature, or at least outdoors. As I set out, I hold the thought of gratitude close and notice what catches my eye. I remember a famous Chinese monk of old who bowed to everything. He bowed to the tree; he bowed to the stone; he bowed to the rabbit running across the road. He was grateful; he appreciated each thing he saw.
I have discovered that almost anything can inspire gratitude—a tree, a leaf, a bird, a cloud, and especially a dog.
I take a notebook and pen with me while I walk. That way I can take note of what I see and consult it later. The gratitude portion of my walks is not long—ten minutes on average. Since I pet and talk to all the dogs that I meet, I don’t cover much distance. But I invariably come back refreshed. One summer morning, I saw a blackberry bush bursting with fruit, and a bit later two squirrels squabbling over an acorn. I noted them, but it was not until I returned home that I was able to understand why I felt so gratified to see them. The blackberry bush reminded me that sweet things come even after a harsh winter. My long recoveries from illness taught me that; the blackberries were a poignant reminder. And the squirrels reminded me how silly it is to argue with people over small things.
I encourage you to make a gratitude walk your daily habit. If you walk regularly for exercise, as my doctor keeps telling me I must, the first five or ten minutes of it can be for gratitude. Those few minutes of thankful reflection will do as much for your mental and spiritual health as the rest of the walk will do for your body.
My friend Barbara walks for gratitude as well as for exercise, and when I told her about my love for dogs, she told me how much she loved the trees and watching them change with the seasons.
“They’re just living their life,” she said. “One day at a time. The seasons just happen, without anyone having to worry about it or plan it in advance. That inspires me. Now that I am retired I want to be more like that.”
I am indebted to Paul, a fellow Zen priest, for this reflection on the preciousness of human life.
I was visiting his house one day and saw a bowl full of pebbles next to a Buddha statue on a shelf. “What are these?” I asked.
“That’s the rest of my life,” Paul replied.
“I see,” I said, not seeing at all.
He laughed. “No, really. Each pebble in there represents a week of the rest of my life.”
“How many do you have in there?”
“About a thousand,” he said. “That’s the number of weeks until age eighty.”
He went on to explain. “One day I was thinking that I was getting older, and I didn’t really know how long I’m going to live. Usually I don’t think about it that much. But human life is so precious. I wondered if I could be more conscious of that.
“I have this big gravel driveway. So I counted out the pebbles into the bowl. Every Monday morning after my meditation, I remove one pebble and put it back in the driveway. One week gone; who knows how many left to go.”
“A mindfulness practice,” I said.
“Yes. I don’t always feel so good when I put that pebble back in the driveway. The pebbles only move in one direction. But a few weeks ago my wife told me that every so often when I’m not around she takes a pebble from the driveway and puts it back in the bowl.”
“That’s sweet,” I said. “So you don’t really know how many pebbles are in there, do you?”
“Nope,” Paul said. “It’s a mystery.”
Inspired by Paul, I made up my own bowl of small pebbles from the gravel path in my garden. At first I was a little dismayed to see how few pebbles represented seventeen years. Then I reached into the bowl, dug down, and let them sift through my fingers. Suddenly it seemed like quite a few.
It all depends on how you look at them.
How many times a day do I say “thank you”? Ten times, twenty, perhaps even fifty? I was sitting alone in my armchair reading when I had this thought. I started to say thank you to myself, over and over: thank you, thank you. At first it seemed mechanical and self-conscious. But soon I found that every time I said “thank you” some picture came to mind. Thank you—and I would think of the tasty dinner I had just had. Thank you—and I noticed the book in my hand, and thought of the author who wrote it. Thank you—I glanced out the window and saw the streaks of red cirrus clouds in the setting sun. It was like taking a gratitude walk in my head, and I needed only this two-word phrase to call it up. I was like the Chinese monk who bowed to everything.
This was my thanksgiving prayer.
Try it now.
When I was repeating the words “thank you,” I had a sense of pleasure and lightness. My skin felt pleasantly alive; every muscle felt relaxed. It was a wholesome feeling.
Gratitude is one of the measurable causes of happiness. Scientists using an MRI scanner have shown that a part of the brain’s frontal lobe lights up when we feel it, and this feeling in my body was the proof of that. Each of these reflections on gratitude—the gratitude walk, the pebbles of life, and the thanksgiving prayer—can create that wholesome feeling.
How does your body feel when you are grateful? Next time you are grateful, tune in to your body and see. Is gratitude a cause of happiness for you? If it is, then reminding yourself of what you are grateful for can help you cultivate happiness in many situations, even when life hands you hardships, as it had for Stephanie and Emma.
This is the kind of happiness Suzuki meant when he said, “You can completely enjoy your life in each moment. The evanescence of things is the reason you enjoy your life.” I have to confess that the first time I read those words I was dubious. Evanescence is the passing away of all we love. How can it be why we enjoy our life? Stephanie discovered that her long-standing marriage was evanescent; Emma discovered the same thing about her agile fingers. Was having those things pass away really the reason they could enjoy their life?
Yet that’s what they both said. Suzuki’s teaching is true. Letting go of what is already slipping away is how we actually enjoy our life.