Are you feeling lonely, hearing of others’ plans for the holidays that involve lots of people?

Or are you enjoying solitude, and hoping you can find as much of it as possible for the next six weeks?

Interesting that a situation can be both for some of us, especially as we grow older and friends or family members move away, or die, leaving us to feel the loss of their companionship and support. Especially during the holiday season, when it can feel like everyone else is a member of the Waltons.

Yet we can be alone without feeling lonely. In fact, you can definitely feel very lonely even in the midst of a crowd. 

Theologian, professor and thinker Paul Tillich spent a lot of time pondering what it means to be alone and/or lonely.

In “The Eternal Now”, he writes:

“Our language has wisely sense these two sides of man’s being alone.  It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone.  And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone…”

Tillich goes on to discuss the many ways in which solitude can serve our souls.  “Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude…”We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea…. Solitude can also be found in the reading of poetry, in listening to music, in looking at pictures, and in sincere thoughtfulness.  We are alone…but we are not lonely.   Solitude protects us without isolating us.  But life call us back to its empty talk and the unavoidable demands of daily routine….”

Does “life call us back,” or is that the world we have created for ourselves won’t let us be silent for a moment, much less alone?  Cell phones. Texting. Emails. Social media. Meet-up groups. Online dating.  Conference calls. Even church.  While all can enhance our lives, are they sometimes robbing us of the solitude we each need to keep our balance?

And what about the inventors, artists, writers, poets, and others who are driven to creative expression? Is this even possible without time alone…and is time alone even possible?

Tillich says, “You cannot become or remain creative without solitude.  One hour of conscious solitude will enrich your creativity far more than hours of trying to learn the creative process.”

True, some do very well bouncing ideas and concepts off others in a group. But for many creative people, spending some time alone to let the tiny nuggets of ideas float to the top has always been much more productive. How else can we hear what our minds and hearts are trying to tell us?

Some people are extroverts. Some are introverts…people who, according to Psychology Today, engage the world in fundamentally different ways. Social engagements can drain them, while quiet time gives them an energy boost. In fact, MRI studies have shown that people who be considered loners actually experience more blood flow in certain areas of their brains during social situations, which can be exhausting.

At the age of 82, Psychologist Carl Jung wrote in a letter these words: “Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words….”

Still, it’s important to remember that loneliness—not solitude—can be bad for our health, especially if you are over 60.  It can keep us from sleeping. Increase our risk for dementia. And even increase the risk of early death.  So what to do?  You can’t just build a friend in the basement. 

But you can take some simple steps to help you feel better and maybe make it easier to make new connections.

Take a walk. Exercise. Strike up a conversation with someone in a coffee shop.  Sign up for a volunteer event.  Attend some holiday concerts or craft fairs. Get a pet—trust me, you won’t be lonely long.

Whether you’re feeling lonely at the moment, or enjoying a quiet break from the crowd, balance is always the key.

As boomers and beyond, we know we have to be a part of the world, but we also know we must feed our souls.

“It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.” Rumi

Smartphones are wonderful, as long as they don’t get smarter than you. Which seems to be a growing trend. You get the phone, and suddenly have to turn on turn on new switches in your brain so you can figure out how to use all the convenient new features that will make your life easier.

At least, that’s the idea.

Recently I became the recipient of yet another new phone, quite by accident. I was simply trying to lower my wireless bill and before the hour-and-a-half conversation with the carrier was over, I was being told my new free phone would be arriving within a few days. What fun! Now I could endure the anxiety of trying to transfer all my data without losing my religion. (Like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein when he assembled the body parts to make the monster, complete with the bolt of lightning.)

Once that joyous process was successfully completed, I wondered if I really needed all the apps that are on the phone. And what about all those apps, anyway?  Are they talking to each other?  Are they plotting our demise? Is Siri somehow planning to take over the world?

I decided to leave that to my techie friends to worry about. I opted instead to take my dog for a walk. With my phone, of course. (But at least it was in my pocket, and not in my face. Trust me, on behalf of all dogs everywhere, don’t take them for a walk and stare at your phone.)

We began our walk. And of course, someone approached us with absolutely no clue of how to control their unleashed dog and I made a snide remark (after they walked by, of course). Like always.

Then it hit me.

What are the “apps” inside of me that should be cleared out?

For instance.

• App:  Seriously? Do you own a leash?? My immediate thought when I see a human with an unleashed dog that is ruining everyone else’s walk. Followed by my most scornful look and shaking of my head.

• App:  Get.Out.Of.My.Lane. This app serves two purposes and can only be engaged when driving. It is both vocally expressed, “Get out of my lane you X#%$#.” It also ties in nicely with any health app on the phone that monitors blood pressure and heart rate. Both of mine rise significantly whenever I engage this app.

• App:  While we’re young! Here’s a handy one, it can be used when I’m standing in a line that never moves. Behind someone at a left turn signal who doesn’t move their car when the light turns green, but finally takes off just as it is turning red so I can wait for the next green light. Or when I’m waiting for the buffering to stop on the television during a crucial scene in a program. Another great frustration app.

• App:  Please nothing new.  This is an app I really need to lose, as it is connected to the part of my brain that does not want to learn any new ways of formatting documents, logging in, changing passwords, storing information, accessing clouds, and so on. I need to delete it within myself. Because everything is new every single day and I’m lucky to be here still figuring it all out.

It’s just been such a crazy year again. Feels like the earth is off its axis, and we are going to be flung off of it a lot sooner than we think. So much anger and hatefulness and impatience everywhere. Drivers going 100 mph on city streets and barely missing other cars. Angry consumers taking out their frustrations on exhausted wait staffs and service people. It’s as though adults have come together to throw one collective tantrum.

And I don’t want to be part of that.

So I’m going to be sure when some of the less positive “apps” within me are engaged, I do my best to catch them early enough to hit “delete.” I won’t succeed every time. But I’m going to do my best.

Remember, everyone is exhausted.

Everyone is a little scared.

Everyone is dealing with something inside no one else knows about.

Everyone deserves a right to be alive, to be respected, and to do the best they can. (And if they are truly evil, a greater force will intervene as needed.)  

I’m hoping for a relatively quiet holiday season, with some good tidings thrown in and full connectivity for everyone. Fingers crossed.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

Aesop

“How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours.”

Wayne Dyer

“A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.”

Dave Berry

As we age, we have the always delightful joy of trying to juggle about 10 million pieces of information in our brains…things we’ve learned, things we’ve wished we could forget, things we have to deal with every day. It’s like having a giant filing cabinet that is bulging at the seams and really needs to be cleaned out occasionally. 

We’d like to be able to remember what we were doing 15 minutes ago. But instead, we have no clue. But we can tell you who sat next to us in fourth grade.

We’d like to remember the name of our neighbor. But instead, we can tell you about our favorite episode from the Lassie series.

What’s going on in our heads? Probably so much more than we think. Sometimes it can feel like our minds are slipping away…but it might just be that we’re making room for new “files.”

Can you relate to any of the following?   

• Your phone keeps making a strange sound, and randomly begins to play music. Then a “enable dictation?” message appears which you can’t remove from the screen. As you are trying to turn it off, you accidentally drop it into a bird bath. 

Do you:

1. Buy a new phone
2. Retrieve this phone and look to the heavens for help
3. Decide you really don’t need a phone and you never liked this one anyway
4. Where are my keys?

• 

• You are ready to settle in and watch an exciting sports event. You no longer have a cable service, as it was too unreliable and too expensive. Instead, you wisely selected an internet-based service that lets you get the channels you want without the high price. Just as the sporting event is about to start, your TV screen goes black and will not respond to your remote. 

Do you:

1. Change the batteries in your remote, then hit it as hard as you can against the table
2. Plug and unplug the television 23 times
3. Begin to recite an ancient curse known only to primitive Peruvian cultures
4. Where are my glasses?

• You decide to take yourself and your best friend to a nice restaurant for the evening. Once seated, you pick up your menu just as they dim the lights about 40%. You now cannot see anything, and you’ve once again left your glasses at home.

Do you:

1. Give your menu to the people at the next table and ask them to hold it up so you can read it
2. Have whatever your friend is having
3. Try to read it through your water glass, hoping it will magnify the words, only to spill the entire glass all over the table just as the waiter shows up
4. Where did I park my car?

• Extra credit: 

You get up off the couch to take the clothes out of the dryer. As you pass the kitchen, you realize you never put up the milk, so you stop and open the refrigerator, which reminds you that you didn’t finish that list you started a few hours ago. In looking for the list, you realize it’s probably in your home office because you got a call in the middle of doing it, so you go there, but you don’t see it. However, you notice you left the printer on and as you turn it off, you see that you didn’t pay that bill you meant to mail today. You take the bill and a check to the kitchen but can’t find any stamps…then remember you bought some earlier so they might be on the kitchen table. You find the stamps, put the bill in the mailbox, and notice when you come back inside the garage that you forgot earlier to put up the dog food. Now you’re back in the house and you hear the dryer come on again so you stop to fold the clothes. You walk back into the kitchen and see the grocery list you’d look for earlier, so you think you might as well go get the items now. But you have no idea where your car keys are.

Do you:

1. Look in all the usual places (pockets, freezer, floor, inside the car, in your hand)
2. Meditate in order to visualize where your keys are
3. Call someone and ask them where they think your keys are
4. Where was it I wanted to go anyway?

The good news is we aren’t losing it all. In fact, things like exercise, good nutrition, adequate sleep, lifelong learning and even playing a musical instrument can boost our brain cells and keep us sharp. And while our short-term memory might be a little fuzzy, our reasoning skills and ability to see the big picture actually not only improve, but outshine those of our younger counterparts.

So maybe the best thing to do is just keep taking in new information and new experiences, and be easy on ourselves when recall is not what we’d like. Just think of all the “stuff” in your mental filing cabinet…letting some of that go could be a really good thing.

So this holiday weekend, enjoy yourself. Don’t shoot off any fireworks (all the dogs in your neighborhood and Veterans will thank you). Be gentle with yourself. Keep rockin’.

And by the way, your keys are right where you left them.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” Dr. Seuss

This morning I made a major change in my work life, I let go of a situation that has become too negative and stressful over the past few years. It’s a situation I’ve been involved in for over 20 years, but the players have changed a great deal and the demands have grown and my heartfelt zeal has long since disappeared.

Yet I am somewhat mystified and almost ashamed to say that even at my 60++ age, after all these years, I still feel compelled to explain why I’m ending something.

Normal, healthy people must be able to just resign or walk away from something in a few words, get their hat and keys, and leave. (The whole Jerry Lewis thing where he used to stand up, put the file folder under his arm, and start to walk away.) Not me. I always feel compelled to spell out and quantify why I’m taking the action. I feel guilty for taking care of myself, for putting myself first.

That’s just not right.

I know that, and even though this time I held to my convictions and decided to put myself first, for once, it still felt strange and as though I’ve done something wrong. Wow.

How many times in our lives have we made room for others, in our hearts and minds? How many times have we forgiven the painful words or looked the other way when a colleague took credit for what we’ve done? Ever gritted your teeth during a meeting? Wanted to open a window and run as fast as you could away from it all?

Truly wondered why you are still in a situation, any kind of situation, that has been not positive for a very long time—and you don’t have to stay in it?

I recently made a commitment to myself:  to live as long and healthy a life as I possibly can. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well for me, it’s involved making some real changes. What I eat, how much I move, what I do with my stress, how I connect with my higher power. And taking this most recent action—removing the elephant’s foot from my chest—is part of that. 

Sometimes, you get to the place where you realize that it really is up to you…the calvary aren’t coming. The unfair client or manager isn’t going to throw their arms around you. Your relative who is always hateful isn’t going to have a revelation that changes how they interact with you.

YOU are the one who has to change the reality—which often means just removing yourself from the situation. And YOU are the one with the years of wisdom, life experience, and wrinkles to do it NOW.

A book I read once told this story:  a woman is standing outside on a sidewalk. Suddenly, a bucket of water rains down on her from an apartment window above. Then before she can move, another bucket of water is poured on her. She looks up, furious, and demands the person stop doing it. A man walks up and says, “why don’t you just move out of the way?”

Yes, why?

Actress Ellen Burstyn said, “Courage is the reward you get after you do something you are afraid to do.”  Isn’t that spectacular? And why are we so afraid anyway to show up for ourselves?  We’ll drive in rush hour traffic, fight a grizzly bear for our children and loved ones, and take a bite of something we know we aren’t going to like, but we won’t take our own hand and walk to the front?  Crazy.

If we don’t treat ourselves fairly, who will?

I am a huge fan of the late John O’Donohue.  In this wonderful book, To Bless The Space Between Us, he says many things that are worth pondering.  Here’s just a sample:

“Behind each face there is a unique world that no one else can see.  This is the mystery of individuality.  The shape of each soul is different.  No one else feels your life the way you do….The great law of life is:  Be yourself. Though this axiom sounds simple, it is often a difficult task. To be yourself, you have to learn how to become who you were dreamed to be. Each person has unique destiny. To be born is to be chosen.  There is something special that each of us has to do in the world….”

You ARE important. You do have a path. If you’re feeling weighed down by people, things, or places that are wrong for you, break away. No, it’s not easy. But it’s so worth it. To breathe more deeply than you ever have. To really celebrate all you are, and all you still will be.  

Like they say, “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”  And it AIN’T over!  Get out there and rock it NOW!

“May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul.”

            John O’Donohue