The Debate about What’s Too Old

Viewing Personal Crossroads through the Lens of Spiritual Aging

The post-debate spotlight has focused our nation’s attention on the question :”What is too old?”  This question has added resonance to those of us who are personally navigating our way  forward  through the shifting sands of aging. For all of us, whether a politician in headline news, or a retiree simply deciding whether to let go of a volunteer post, the issue remains the same: When am I meant to push through? When to surrender? We’ve all had bosses who held on too long. Cringed when the once celestial singer’s voice goes flat. But what about when that boss or singer is you?

Each moment of every one of our increasingly precious days, we are at a crossroads. Some of us are more prepared than others to recognize that moment than others…well-practiced at sorting through old habits of thinking, outgrown identities and confusion concerning what we are truly called to do. I’m speaking here of the many of our current generation coming into age who have been doing our psychological and spiritual homework not just in a moment of crisis but for decades.

Decision-making in the best of circumstances is daunting, especially when the ramifications to ourselves and others is significant. In the realm of conscious aging, we are confronted early on with the large degree of unconsciousness, factors influencing our thinking, over which we have no control. But we have also been working hard and long through the arc of life, all of it in service of wresting more and more consciousness out of the whole.

We wouldn’t have made it this far if we hadn’t succeeded. Our capacity to tell the truth, to see clearly, to discern the best possibilities given our circumstances has grown exponentially. We can use our expanded awareness coupled with free will to respond more efficiently than ever to the Divine’s call to make the best, most life-giving choice in any given moment. Will you? This is no small question, as letting go of everything that brought you this far makes you vulnerable in ways you had never anticipated—did not know you had in you.

Like many of us old souls, I am many things today that I wasn’t months ago, let alone years. Of course, there are the losses and diminishments age brings to us all on the far side of midlife. But I am also less liable to be bullied, more self-nurturing, less worried about what others think and how things look, and generally more apt to bound out the front door eager to experience whatever new adventures may come my way. I understand more about what it means to love and be loved, and how to tender compassion without strings attached. And yet, on any given day, I may also be devastated at some point, ecstatic at another, and for the rest I am often just doing—well, whatever. At my best, I suppose I am in that state for which I have so mightily striven over the years: simply living in the present moment as consciously as possible.

The making of an old soul asks almost more of you than you can bear. For the remainder of your journey, however easy or difficult, all you can do is hold yourself tightly with as much compassion as you can muster for yourself, the world, and the human condition and then hope like hell you make the right decision.

There must be something to it that so many wise elders who have touched this place of utter surrender ask us variations of psychologist James Hollis’ question: What is it that can’t be lost to you?  To those courageous enough to rise to the serious occasion this question demands of us, the answer may or may not include keeping or resigning a particular job, continuing or retiring from the stage, but rather something much bigger and more central. Have you used this lifetime wisely?  Have you grown larger than your ego, finding the strength in old age to weigh and balance our assets in a final reckoning and an ultimate sacrifice? Have you discovered what truly matters most?

“Nothing less than bearing it all will do, for it is the creation of a change of consciousness,” writes Jungian author Florida Scott-Maxwell in her classic work on aging The Measure of My Days. “Nothing less and no words are needed. It is the mystery that is done to us; as though love and pain and emergence are all intensified energy by which one is fired, ordered and perhaps annealed. The purpose of life may be to clarify our essence, and everything else is the rich, dull, hard, absorbing chaos that allows the central transmutation.”

So what is too old? At your age and beyond, should one push through or should one let go?  To which I can, at last, reply: “Let’s take a walk, hold hands, cry together, laugh, too, and if we have to say anything at all, let it be Amen.”

Adapted from Carol Orsborn’s The Making of an Old Soul.