September (UN)Learning

 

September has always seemed like the start of a new year, especially if you’ve had kids going back to school. But even once my child grew up and moved out, I still get that new-start-to-the-year feeling after Labour Day.

A new year implies new beginnings, new goals, new challenges, new routines and learning. But, does it really have to be? What if we focused on what we already have and dug deeper? Or . . . tried to unlearn habits and beliefs we’ve held onto that no longer serve us? Over the past three years I’ve taken up a lot of new things which bring me joy and fulfillment. I’m not sure I have room in my days for more. What if I spent my energy going deeper instead of casting my net wider?

On a recent podcast, I listened to an interview with a woman who is 102, Dr. Gladys McGarey, a doctor who still has a 10-year plan. She advocates giving wild energy to your life, not pulling back on the things you love doing just because you’re getting older. I love the idea of spending your energy with abandon, not worried about conserving it as if there’s a finite amount. She says life is energy, constantly moving, and if you don’t engage with it, that’s when you become stuck.

I don’t interpret this as being constantly on the go, busying yourself with projects and tasks and goals. But rather, giving lots of energy to doing the things you love, even if people look askance at you, wondering why you’re not acting your age. I wrote a blog post a while back on Tilting, which said something similar: tilt madly towards the things you love.

More and more, I find myself gravitating towards listening to older women of substance, who speak with authenticity and wisdom, their egos tucked away. They’re not trying to sound wise. They are wise.

On a recent Life Stories zoom call with Ageless Possibilities, we were discussing the meaning of goals versus intentions. Everyone had a slightly different take on what the differences were, varying from goals being external, a finish line in sight, whereas an intention was a path to get you there.

One woman made the observation that language and words can place many constraints on us. It boxes us in, makes us feel unheard or misunderstood.

After the call, it got me thinking. Yes, language does that. When people shrug their shoulders and smirk at all the politically correct terminology in use, I remind myself (and sometimes those I’m talking with) that we need to remember who put all the terminology in place: the people in power at the time, oblivious to how it affected others with less (or no) power. And so what if we must now make an effort to use the correct words, to UNLEARN the habits of the past? Is that such a difficult thing? Language is powerful. Words can hurt. “Once we put language on things” (my writing friend’s words), we can unknowingly cause rippling effects that can last for hundreds of years.

To age wisely is to be willing to unlearn as well as learn. September can be a month not only for learning new things, but unlearning what no longer serves us. Or others.