As an undergraduate in psychology years ago, I found a lot of comfort in the various ways psychologists described the different psycho-social developmental stages of life. I felt unrooted at the time, and the staging process gave me a place and a path. I could review my life up to that point as a series of milestones and could imagine the milestones to come.

I find myself unrooted again as I am getting older and am now retired, and so I turned once more to Erik Erikson, who identified eight developmental stages of life. What might he have in store for me at this stage?

Erikson holds that the current stage I am in involves the choice (or tension) between integrity (in terms of integrating the sum of life) and despair. In this stage, you do the work of resolving regrets and seeing the bigger picture. And you are guided by your developing wisdom.

There seems to be some truth in this. I have witnessed older family members work hard at reconciliation, for sure. And it is something I have witnessed in friends who were facing their own deaths.

But also some of my friends and family members don’t do this at all — many people do this work their whole lives and so don’t have much to do of it now. Indeed in yoga, we like to keep our slates clean; we like to quickly get to things that might leave a trail of regret and take care of them before they do more damage. It is best not to shove this work to the last period of life. Clean the kitchen as you go, my mom used to say, and the stack of dirty dishes after dinner will be much more manageable.

So Erickson leaves me puzzled and adrift. Perhaps I ask too much.

A different path

Then I came across these words spoken by Thomas Merton. Merton was a Trappist monk and he met with a group of nuns and monks on his way to Asia in 1968 (where sadly, he passed away unexpectedly). He is quoted as saying the following to that group. It is just 4 or 5 sentences, but I am going to break it down into three different ideas.

(1) “Today time is commodity, and for each one of us time is mortgaged. We experience time as unlimited indebtedness…”

Who doesn’t feel as if they ‘never’ have enough time? But time during the retirement years is kind of a weird thing. I always feel as if time is the worst thing in the world ‘to waste,’ so I have to keep moving, no matter what. As I get older, I am sharply aware of time’s limits. I remember my dad in his late 70s teasing me when I planted a pear tree sapling that would eventually provide shade for our back deck. He said, ‘It will never provide shade to me.’ I am coming to understand that feeling.

As a consequence of my awareness of time’s limits, perhaps oddly, I am addicted to my to-do list. It is clear that my need for one is much more than practical. Even my search for life stages perhaps is a yearning for a to-do list. It may provide a needed set of external expectations and demands to attach myself to, to escape my feeling unrootedness.

(2) Merton goes on, the second big idea in this passage:

“[But instead] the main theme of time is that of inner growth …  There is a great thing in my life – [I am meant] to grow.  Move this around a little bit in meditation… “

My mind was blown when I read this. The reason, I suppose, is that it is easy to forget that growth is the core human experience. We put a great deal of energy into nurturing growth when we are young. But what about now? Am I not still growing? Isn’t that a choice I can make?

Merton says, don’t just accept this as a fact. Roll it around in your soul a bit when you are quiet and in meditation. Compare the ‘you that can grow’ to the ‘you that is attached to the use of time.’ What gets sparked for you? What truth is there to find?

(3) And finally:

“What truly matters is not how to get the most out of life, but how to recollect yourself so that you can fully give yourself.”

‘Recollect’ is a powerful word here. If I understand Merton well enough, he means ‘come back to yourself — the person you truly are,’ rather than stuffing your identity full of accomplishments and goals. It means that only by coming back to our true selves and exploring where there are opportunities for growth can we give (or even do anything) in a truly authentic way. And maybe that’s what we should always be doing, no matter our age or what each day brings. 

When our two kids were young, our job was to open the world for them, so they would see more options for themselves and could play within whatever limits they had or wanted to put on themselves. Merton seems to be getting to this, but since he was a monk and focused on his interior life, this opening was internal. Erich Schiffman might call this ‘playing your edge’ — becoming aware of discomfort or newness or fear, and gently nudging towards it. Merton says, yes, and focus on bringing your true self back into everything you do.

This feels daunting to me. And confusing, but truthful.

What does inner growth feel like without the mile-markers of youth?

I suspect this is why Merton sends us back to meditation. He cannot say what growth looks like for anyone. But he can say how to find it yourself.

And he knows there is no limit on growth and no directionality to it either. Follow your curiosity. Follow your discomfort. Maybe there are skills to develop. Maybe there are new people to learn from. Maybe engaging with young people will shake up your world view. Maybe there are old habits that no longer serve you well, emotional as well as behavioral.

Here is where I am finding myself when I approach this stage of life with Merton’s guidance:

I am learning to ‘un-expert’ myself. I spent a huge part of my career being an expert. And parenting is also about being in the role of expert for your kids. So I am looking at times my expertise gets in the way of learning to look at things in a totally fresh way.

For example, I am learning to be open to things my expertise has put into shadow, like my own sensory-motor awareness. How can I cope with my aches and pains without ALWAYS running to a textbook of some kind? Without always delivering the problem to my frontal cortex to solve? Can I just listen to my body as it is speaking to me?

And I am learning how I am incredibly impatient with other people. I am learning to get comfortable using these words: I don’t know. Those are tough words. But also a relief!

Overall, I am leveling down and softening my interactions with the world. It is hard. And crunchy. There is a lots of work to do here in ‘un-expert-land.’

I am also exploring new pastimes where the intention is not achievement, but just enjoying the process and the experience of ‘flow.’ Perhaps this will help me unlock my preoccupation with ‘time wasting’ and to-do lists. We will see. I think I need to ‘do’ less and ‘sit in being’ more, and I am not sure how to do that.

But, like Merton, these areas of growth may not be the same for anyone else. Indeed, they likely are not. We each must recollect ourselves and work from that place. As you look inside, you will be guided.

So, what does it mean to thrive now? Perhaps growth means what is always has, what we wanted for our kids — learning to find joy, coming back to who we are, and finding how to play with the limits we have in and around ourselves in an open-ended way so that new doors can open for us everywhere. Playing our edges.