The Sunday New York Times often drops a gift in my lap – a startling photograph, an engrossing article, an opinion piece that makes me wish I could chat with the author.
Yesterday I read “The Joy of Being a Woman in her 70’s” by Mary Pipher, renowned psychologist, and author of Finding Ophelia, about adolescent girls. Her new book, due mid January, deals with another chapter of life, the one I myself have entered (small wonder it caught my eye!)
This chapter may bring challenges, yet most women here describe themselves as being in a vibrant and happy life stage. This happiness comes from self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, and empathy for others. It’s time to treat ourselves kindly. We can listen to our hearts and act in our own best interest. How do we grow? In the author’s view, by developing our imagination and our capacity to simultaneously carry difficult challenge and bliss.
Happiness, Dr. Pipher asserts, is a skill and a choice. We may not always have control, but we have choices, and we can always find a path forward. If we search for events to appreciate, they will be abundant. She quotes a friend who says that as a younger person she needed a hike to the top of a mountain to experience bliss. Now, she can find it in a caterpillar on her garden path.
We learn the importance of reasonable expectations. Joys and sadness may be mixed together like salt and water in the sea. I love her aunt (from the Ozarks) who said “I get what I want, but I know what to want.”
The constant in our lives is change. We choose resilience: we create our good days. We make it work! In her upcoming book Dr. Pipher quotes Eleanor Roosevelt: The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
What is your challenge? If hearing difficulty (a little or a lot) is on your plate, enlist your resilience! We have learned that hearing impacts healthy living in so many ways: memory, engagement, delights, cardiac health, balance….the list goes on.
Rise to your challenge and live to the fullest. Technology has made enormous strides. The helpful and supportive people here at McGuire’s Hearing Centers are here to help. It has never been easier or more satisfying to take a path forward to your best engagement with family, friends and community. We look forward to working together with you!