Tag: wisdom
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Acceptance
Aging requires the acceptance of some inevitable truths about oneself and about life. We are no longer able to imagine an infinite future. Our mortality is assured. Progressively, we will lose our energy, our friends, our cherished activities and the identity we once knew. If you are like me, you don’t suddenly arrive at this…
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Preparing for the Final Exam of Life
Recently, I was taken aback by being asked to deliver the memorial eulogy for our departed classmates at our upcoming 50th year High School Reunion. Why me, I asked? Isn’t there a Priest or Rabbi in our class who is used to doing something like this? That question not only did not seem to matter…
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The Philosophy of Wisdom and the Wisdom of Philosophy
Recently I had the pleasure of reading Daniel Klein’s little wisdom book, Travels with Epicurus (2012), a writerly account of his month on the Greek island of Hydra in search of a philosophy of old age. Klein opens with a story about being faced with the question of whether to pay for expensive dental…
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Does Self-Deceit Increase Happiness in Old Age?
Do old people have a “positivity bias” so that they self-deceptively ignore negative information? Yes, says evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers in his provocative book, The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. Trivers tells us that preliminary experiments show older adults preferring positive faces, ignoring negative stimuli and generally focusing…
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A Time for Everything
I am the mother of two young children and the primary care physician of a thousand or so aging patients. Twenty-four hours a day I am either “on-call” for or providing care directly to needy, dependent little people. And about ten hours a day plus some nights and weekends, I am caring for needy, ailing…