02/07/2013
When you think about it, we spend almost all of our lives trying to figure it out. As an infant, we try to figure out what in the hell is going on. What are we? Where are we? What is this? Who is that? We figure out how to walk, talk, comprehend, learn.
As adolescents, we struggle to figure out who we are in this world—why some of it makes sense and some of it doesn't. We desperately seek to express a definition of ourselves that will not only tell the world who it is they're dealing with, but secretly give us some extra time to wrap our minds around this giant concept we barely understand.
As young adults, we enter an entirely new landscape of "figuring it out." We now have to not only "act" like we sort of know something, we have to actually DO something that suggests as much. And this reality only builds in strength and scope. As we exit our twenties, we're supposed to know pretty much what we want out of life and how we want to apply it to the next fifty years.
In our thirties, we're supposed to figure out how to be married (for real), how to be parents, how to be professionals, how to be homeowners, how to save money, how to think about the future, how to accept hardship and adversity, even sadness, but also triumph and success.
In middle-age, we have to figure out aching joints and tired bodies, wear-and-tear, long-term health and finances, career stability, life reflection, the passage of time, what it all means, who we are now as opposed to then, who we have around us, what lies ahead, and what we need to leave behind.
Our sixties and seventies bring about a new shift—we're now "seniors"—aka "old" by societal standards. And whereas we know that age is just a number, the number still represents a profound passage of life and time. We wonder if we did all that we were supposed to, or could have done. We contemplate do-overs, or perhaps second, maybe third chapters. We try to figure out what it means to live this long, as so many haven't. We look at the many generations before us, now gone, and the many after us—and the repetition of it all. We have satisfaction, and regret. We have great joys, and great sorrows. Our vigor might be less, but our hopes are still pure, and our fears concern us more than we'd care to admit.
Our eighties and beyond are not spent trying to figure out very much—but rather, accept. We simply have to accept that we've made it this far, and what will be will be. We're not useless by any means—just a little slower, a little more cautious. The world around us is now moving at a speed we don't really recognize, though we once did. Most of what we know and remember is stored safe in the vault inside of our hearts and minds. The value of life now is measured in relationships and memories, and moments close on the horizon. We accept that not everything is meant to be challenged, conquered....figured out. Life is life. We will come and go. What we do while we're here will impact a certain amount of people, perhaps even perpetuate something greater. Who we are and who we were will depend on how much we figured out along the way. And in the end, we figure out that life is unique to every single person who lives it—we're all in it together, and then in a blink, we're gone. We tell those who care to listen: "You don't have to figure out everything. But figure out something. Life is too short to spend undecided."