“Aging: The Decision to Open Up and Move On”
Erik Erikson identified a number of developmental life stages. I am in the last one: Ego Integrity vs. Despair. And I have times of both integrity and despair.
But I get to choose, on any given day (and many times during the day as well) whether I will go with integrity or despair.
The other day, I had a good text message exchange with a friend. He was telling me that he was rereading The Road Less Traveled, and that, now that he was older, maybe he would be more open to its message.
I replied, “The aging process is, I think, an invitation to either close up and shut down, or it is an invitation to open up and move on. I’m not sure where I read that, or if I made it up, but I do believe that’s true. However, we have to either accept the invitation to open up and move on, or turn it down.”
And this acceptance or rejection of the invitation isn’t a one-off. No! It must be accepted or rejected many times during the day. Sometimes, the invitations are to open up and move on in big ways. Most often, the invitation involves such small things that it is easy to miss the invitation entirely. These invitations do not come on fancy paper, with gilded envelopes, but all these invitations are significant.
How will I respond to these invitations today? How will you respond?
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