29. Who Will You Bring to the Party?
31. Changing Ourselves to Change the World
36. Being in Charge of Who We Are
37. Remembering Those Who Made a Mark on Our Lives
38. The Greatest Gifts We Can Offer One Another
39. It's Time for a Change of Pace
42. Remembering the Little Things
50. Cultivating Warm Relations
51. What Are You Grateful for Today?
52. Do You Like Yourself Enough?
56. What's the Biggest Lesson of Your Life So Far?
59. What Makes You Come Alive?
64. Living in the Moment with Rapt Attention
65. You Can't Change Others, So Change Yourself
66. Is Real Peace Ever an Actuality?
69. The First Day of Your Retired Life
72. Recalling Your Life Lessons
74. What if You Had Six Months to Live?
Author's Note
Use this book as your guide and inspiration. Have a notebook or journal dedicated to the exercises you choose to do from this book. Take the book at your own pace—spend as much or as little time as you want to spend with any one topic. You can either go through from start to finish or skip around as topics appeal to your needs and interests.
Explore fear and love, resistance and acceptance, willpower and discernment. Bring peace into your daily life. This is a book to return to again and again. Savor each of the seventy-five essays and the practices that follow it. Choose the ones that speak to you and discard the rest.
Introduction
Breathe, Pause, Breathe,
Pause, Breathe . . .
The gift of a somewhat retired life is having the time to fully appreciate the power of now, the power of nothingness. Which is, of course, the power of everythingness. This is a space I'm growing into in these days and weeks, hopefully months and years too, since turning seventy-five. Everythingness—what a glorious doorway to the unfolding of a life already well lived, and yet one that is ripe for far more living.
Since the age of thirteen, I have been employed. I have also been an alcoholic since that age. Until now, I had not considered that parallel in my life. Does the alcoholism in fact “complement” the work life? I think it did for me. The drink was quite often the reward for work well done. As I aged, the alcohol also fueled the act of working. Seldom did I grade papers, develop strategic plans, or study for exams without a glass of Jack Daniel's by my side. It eased the transition between thoughts and words on the page. It eased all the years it took to become a PhD.
Throughout the journey from drink number one to the celebration of thirty-eight years of abstinence, I passed through many portals of life, and seldom did I take the time to breathe, pause, and breathe again. I simply rushed by the events, the people, the inclinations to make choice A rather than choice B. I had never considered the idea