Mindfulness Gets Easier with Age

As a young man, busy paddling my canoe, studying, building my curriculum vita, getting my name in front of my influencers, and testing social limits, five minutes of mindfulness practice took a tremendous effort...a confounding irony in itself. My mind was excited and full of ideas and curiosity; my body was full of testosterone.

Chaotic People on Charles Bridge in Prague
Photo by Viktor Hanacek, on picjumbo.com

With age, the ideas have joined the wind. The once red-hot ashes of curiosity have long since soaked into the earth to green the grasses of someone else's summer. Testosterone has become a number, rather than an incentive. Today I slip into a mindful state much like the the muscles of my legs adjust to the trail slope, without convincing them to do so.

Mindfulness gets easier with age for several reasons:

Practice Makes ... 

I started consciously practicing mindfulness, specifically, as a student at Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois. An office partner, Jay, often used Jon Kabat-Zinn's, phrase, from the book title, "Wherever You Go, There You Are." Jay, then a school teacher and graduate student, was sort of a mentor among us students, in the Biological Sciences Department at NIU. He was just a little older and more experienced outside of the academic world than any of us, and he was focused, productive, and thoughtful. Curious about the phrase that Jay often quoted, I bought, read, and studied the book.

Even before hearing the word, "mindfulness," I had unknowingly practiced it. My father, an avid outdoorsman taught me many relevant skills: waiting, careful observation, listening, being quiet and still, and utilizing my entire field of vision. Solitude also taught me many skills.

A particular childhood memory of a drifting sensation, brought about by watching the dust drift in the sun's rays provided me with a reference sensation that I used, decades later, in my early meditation practice. Now, a half a century later, I've had quite a bit of practice.

Fading Away

As I age my mind fades. Time takes away more memories each year. 

I no longer connect emotions, images, and other sensations with youthful agility. Names no longer label faces; flavors don't stir memories of events; and the smell of perfumes no longer remind me of some girl I knew. Fewer distractions pull me away from mindfulness. 

Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Two marriages, two daughters, and a long professional career behind me have left most of life's challenges to fade with my past. Ahead lay dwindling years that belong, mostly, to my survivors.

Cell by cell, my tissues and organs succumb to inevitable failure, as diabetes and cardiovascular dysfunction begin to take their toll. They'll soon overcome me, and I'll join the ashes of someone else's green pasture.

No Hurry

As a young man, something, somewhere, and someone always called. Curiosity and hope kept me paddling to get around the next bend. Countless bends later the current moves me along just fine without paddling a stroke. I'm fine watching the ripples on the water and listening to the birds as I float by.

Just Being Me

A friend, Rich, in Las Cruces, told me about his aging mother, who had, as he stated, "lost her filter," and would say very embarrassing things in public. My filter, too, I think, has some big holes in it. I fret less ... almost not at all ... about what others might think. I understand that if I'm ok with something, it's as "ok" as it needs to be. 

In youth, I knew not who I was "supposed to" be. Today I understand that "supposed to" is arbitrary and relative, just like "good" and "bad." Things just are, whether someone thinks that they "should be" one way or another.

The Consequences of "non-Mindfulness"

A 62-stair walkway between my office and the rest of the campus reminds me, every work day, to pay attention to my body. Although younger students can text their way up and down the stairs, I must pay attention to my feet all the way up and all the way down. Failure to do so would have painful consequences. 

That's mindfulness at work, and it's just one of those things that gets better with age!

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