Author’s note: Punditry is often negative. Critical. Judgmental. Argumentative. This piece is different. Psychology deals with maladjustment, hidden motivations, unhappiness and peeking beneath the mask. Positive psychology looks at the other side: the well-adjusted, the happy, and people free of affectations. Centenarians are generally role models for these behaviors, which helps explain their longevity.
I
Life is fragile, yet you survived.
While others succumbed
To disease, trauma, accident or human frailty.
You overcame them all.
Not laughing in in the face of adversity,
But transcending it.
Oh, how you transcended it,
You who lived one-hundred years.
You’ve been extraordinarily resilient to loss.
You had to be.
All your friends died.
Your spouse died.
Even some of your children died.
Yet you go on.
And on.
You are an institution.
You lost your youth, your vigor, your strength,
And much of your productivity.
But these loses did not plague your years.
You lost your familiar world; you watched it transform
Socially
Morally
Culturally
Stylistically
Economically
Technologically.
You flowed with the change.
Wistful about the past.
Interested in the present.
Curious about the future.
You accepted the losses as the way of all things,
Without fear.
You accepted them with a positive spirit.
Not with resignation,
But with a philosophical joy.
II
You relate to people as naturally as you breathe;
Effortlessly.
With neither fear nor hesitation.
Without rancor or affectation.
You perceive people as reasonable and worthy of trust.
You are a creature of community.
You revel in the fellowship of other.
You refrain from critical judgment.
You seek not weakness in others,
You derive no secret joy from others’ adversity.
You have loved well.
You could not have lived without it.
Your love was neither romantic,
Overly dependent, or saccharine.
It derived from strength, not weakness
It was not an ephemeral love in the clouds
But grounded, solid, natural and enduring
Like the Earth.
You loved your spouse, your children, your work,
And your fellow man.
You are connected with people.
With work.
With friends.
With community.
With feelings,
With God.
Your sense of self and place is indestructible…
And comforting.
It gives you strength, and security, and order and…
Certainty.
A certainty rooted in your soul.
III
You are almost without ego.
You expend no energy defending your honor to others.
And even more importantly
Defending your honor to yourself.
You do not dry up your life’s juices posturing for the world.
You who lived a century have no demons.
You do not bristle at slights, real or imagined.
The world does not threaten.
Your thoughts, feelings and actions are not stifled
by fears,
by your past
by uncertainty
by doubts
By unfulfilled dreams.
You are who you are:
Without pretension
Without affectation
Without worry
Without regrets
While others grunt under the weight
Of their own self-involvement
You are self-Uninvolved.
You simply act without intellectualizing.
Without wondering how it will reflect back on you.
Without hesitation.
You are genuinely unpremeditated.
You are not full of yourself. You are free.
Free!
You like yourself but do not love yourself.
Unencumbered by ego, you are able to give to others.
Your positive spirit reflects back from them
Giving you even more strength of mind and body.
IV
You worked long. And hard.
And never stopped.
Work was not a vehicle to prove your worth.
It was there. That’s all.
You conquered no worlds with your work, nor did you want to.
There were few disappointments:
No unrealized expectations
No lifetime malaise
No quiet desperation
No Vindictiveness
Just a quiet satisfaction in personal utility.
Rancor, cynicism, and hostility were alien.
You were slow to anger, quick to forgive and
Unconcerned about getting your piece of the pie.
You did not “succeed” in the traditional sense of acquiring worldly goods.
You did not compete.
You did not fail.
But you were useful.
Useful!
You often worked alone; it was easier that way.
No conflict.
No hassles.
No challenges.
Just steadiness…and certainty…and order.
And Satisfaction
You cultivated your own garden
It was small
But it was alive and green.
You sought not false gods.
Money, power, women (men).
Prizes, recognition, trophies.
You needed them not at all.
Your unarticulated purpose was not to win.
But to live – in harmony – without contention.
You have not conquered the world.
But it has not conquered you.
A Mexican standoff
That you won.
V
The Why of your life lacks drama
It lacks transcendence.
Your Why is quiet, steady, prosaic.
But incredibly strong.
Your Why is in a good day’s work,
in Sunday dinner
in a grandchild’s call
in Church
in communion with God.
in a busy day
in a busy life
in modest purpose
in today
in tomorrow
in yesterday.
Your Why ask not why?
of life
of death
of adversity
of suffering
of injustice
of unfairness
It accepts.
You shrug off the evils of the world
Knowing that ultimately justice will be dispensed
In another dimension.
VI
Time is your friend
Bringing memories of a life well-lived
And holding the promise of more to come.
You find happiness in the past but do not cling to it.
You are comfortable
in all times,
in all places,
with all people.
Time does not pressure you
You do not race against it
You dance with it
You use time; you are its master
The fact that you now have less of it, matters not at all
You smile at the Reaper and he cringes
He finds no joy in those who do not fear him
Stress is an unknown country.
While others worry, you worry not
Your nerves do not jangle
Your calm is legendary.
Throughout your life, you never hurried.
Almost as if you knew you had years to spare.
You do not burn with regrets.
Do not cry over what might have been
The road not traveled is a road not meant to be
You accept what is, with its heartaches and failures
As inevitable.
The life you had was the only one you could have had.
And if it wasn’t good, it was good enough.
While movers and shakers burned themselves out
You go on.
You are the meek.
And if you have not inherited the Earth
You have inherited more than its share of time.
VII
You do not count the years
Ticking them off like signposts…
On the way to dusty death.
They pass, almost unnoticed.
Like small towns outside a train window at twilight.
You know the years are behind you
And that the journey is still before you.
You do not deny mortality
It does not haunt your nights.
Instead, it plays mellow on the mind.
You smile at death
Awaiting the opportunity to see loved ones again.
You regret leaving this life
But will depart with satisfaction
Because it was a life-well lived:
Productive
Modest
Simple
Committed
Genuine
Loving
You are at peace and always have been.
You are a monument
And a model for us all.
Ode to a Centenarian is from a book I published. Change Your Mind, Save Your Life: How your mind affects your health and what you can do about it. It is based on years of research and writing. Many studies have been done on centenarians, and they do indeed have a number of common characteristics, most of which are in the poem. Very few people make it to the century mark; the natural order of things sweeps us away. Inherent characteristics take us down dangerous roads. If we can’t be centenarians, we can try to get closer to the ideal.
By the way: It is really difficult to read because of the Substack method of handling line-breaks. I copied it into Word and took out all the extraneous space, before I could really digest it. Then it is not only beautiful, but extremely insightful. One suggestion: you could take a screen shot of each section, more compressed, and then post it as a series of graphic files. I do it on some of my sites.
(And I don't understand Substack formatting. I see some lists that are more tight packed??)
.
I. Survive in the face of fragility
Actually transcending fragility
You can accept loss
Interested in the present
No resignation
II. Relate to people naturally
People are worthy of trust
Your love is like the earth
III. Ego evaporates
Without regret
IV. You know engagement, (work)
Slow to anger quick to forgive
V. Drama is not fulfilling
"Why" is conceptual, "made-up" meaning
VI. Time is the gift of perspective
The life you had was the only one you could have had
VII. Statistics are not a reality
The journey is ongoing
Thanks