To age with awareness asks quite a lot from us. As David Chernikoff tells us, the process “…asks nothing less of us than to joyfully embrace what the Taoist teachings call,“the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows.” In our decades of living we have each had our share of grief and gladness, challenge and ease on life’s path. Holding all of it, the whole enchilada, with awareness, enables us to value the gifts we have received and the gifs we might offer. Those gifts are the fruit of the vast sum of all that experience.
By skiathos greece on unsplash
Stepping into a life of conscious ageing allows us to deepen into our selves, to find the richness of our presence on Planet Earth. Here we recognise all of the mysteries of life, all the puzzling enigmas we have experienced. Here we also recollect all of the resolutions we may have found—or not. Here we re-cognise, or know again, and we re-collect, gather again all our sagacity—our sage-ness, our wisdom.
Chernikoff concludes that, “In the end, we come to clearly see and understand what the Sufis call “the privilege of being human” and what Buddhist teachers call “the preciousness of a human birth.”
No matter what we have endured, what we have celebrated, what we have survived, what we have created, our lives are precious. Recognising the worth and significance of our lives is the reward we receive by attending to what is asked of us. We may not be famous. We may not be recognised as a celebrity as we walk down the road, hounded by paparazzi. We may not have a gazillion followers on twitter.
Yet, living a life is a privilege. Holding our lives in this sacred way, allows us to shine as the precious jewel we are.
(I highly recommend David Chernikoff’s book Life, Part Two: Seven Keys to Awakening with Purpose and Joy as You Age.)