The Gentle Art Of Living Well
“Life is just one damn thing after another … you’ll never get out alive.” (Elbert Hubbard, 1855-1915)
Everybody copes with life’s parade of problems as best they can. In her day, my mother kept a stash of 15 mg Phenobarbital pills for especially rough times. Today, some without insurance see alcohol and/or illicit drugs as lower cost alternatives to facing life’s challenges.
In the pharmacy, I see the “lucky” ones with insurance. They take various and changing combinations of weak and strong narcotics, uppers, downers and antidepressants for pain and suffering. Few seem really satisfied.
Occasionally, someone decides that long-term medications aren’t helping with their problems. I take time to congratulate and talk with them. Those are my happiest days.
Anxiety is part of the human condition. The ancient Greek Stoics advocated denying all passion as a means of coping with life. Yoga disciplines followers to become one with a supreme being for liberation from the daily world.
In his epic poem, Paradise Lost, 17th Century British poet John Milton tells the biblical story of Adam and Eve, their fall from grace, and expulsion from the Garden of Eden for committing original sin. Sex, I believe.
God doomed fallen man to a life of guilt, shame and anxiety. His only hope is redemption through Jesus Christ, the messiah.
Snakes in today’s garden of life forebode misfortune and threaten tranquility: What if … gets sick/dies? What if … loses/doesn’t get the job? What if … my supporter/love object, rejects me? What if the US goes over the fiscal cliff?
Worrying about tomorrow’s possibilities establishes a vicious cycle of anxiety that saps today’s strength. Suffering comes from wanting control over the uncontrollable.
Apprehension about the future, on the other hand, serves an important function. It prompts us to ask ourselves how we can prevent or prepare for misfortune. When fate comes calling will I be appropriately empathetic and compassionate? Is what I’m preparing to do going to be helpful or make matters worse?
In his “House Divided” speech not long before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said, “If we knew exactly where we were and which way we were tending, we would better know what to do.” Uncertainty over tomorrow, of course, is the underlying issue.
The Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, born in AD 55, said that fate is unavoidable. Causes don’t matter. We can control our response to events. We don’t have to let them rule or ruin us.
From enduring my fair share of life’s pain and self-inflicted nervous suffering, I’ve developed a couple of adages. When life happens, I don’t should on myself, as in I should have known better. When undesired or unfortunate things happen, I don’t say this shouldn’t be happening to me.
Life is what it is. Events are as they are. After allowing myself due time to grieve and/or be angry, I pick up and go on.
And, when a matter keeps me awake at night, rather than futilely attempting to force myself to sleep, I imagine all of the future possibilities I can and how I might respond to them. Then I accept that’s the best I can do for the time being and allow my mind to wander to other things. I still occasionally have restless nights. That’s life.
In Paradise Lost, Milton wrote, “… the mind is its own place; it can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven…” Living well, to live more fully in the day, takes courage. It also takes faith that, come what may, things will work out.
Jim Waun
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