Living One Day at a Time
I’ve been thinking a lot about choices as we age – for example, do I have fewer choices or just not the choices I believe I have? How will I live within those choices?
In a two-week period, two different people at different times lamented to me that it felt like we, as adults, have less control as we age. It really gave me something to think about.
Over the last year or so I had some difficult health issues to navigate. While they seem to be mostly resolved for now, I not only didn’t like the choices I had – it felt like I was headed for a result I neither anticipated nor wanted.
What were the things I didn’t like?
I didn’t like the way I felt. I was tired all the time and was unable to move my body regularly because I simply had no energy.
I needed help every day. Like most of you, I have been very independent and wanted to remain so.
The uncertainty was dreadful. Would the treatments work? They often didn’t work, requiring the clinical team to go back to the drawing board.
What did I learn?
I learned that doing a small task, even when I am low energy, helps my mental state and gives me a sense of control. It at least gives me a sense of accomplishment.
Being willing to receive help from home care and my husband positioned me to both feel better and do more, which led to more control. I chose to be grateful for the home care – it meant I wasn’t hospitalized.
Dealing with uncertainty was the hardest part of coping. I know we do it all the time and in almost every area. We deal with economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, relationship uncertainty…the list goes on.
How I related to uncertainty that health stressors wrought is what gave me a feeling of control. At each juncture, I made choices, but the most important decision I made every day was my attitude. Viktor Frankl said, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Ultimately, I tried to live each day, doing my best to heal. When the treatments didn’t work (and they often didn’t), I addressed the next step as it came, choosing to stay hopeful.
Join me in living one day at a time. It is making a difference for me.
Your friend,
Marti