Excerpts from Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart
“How best to sustain hope when the western horizon of our lives looms increasingly close? We can cultivate religion with its promise of immortality and reunion with those we have lost. Or, we can concede a poor agnosticism and surrender ourselves to the unknown as we try to imagine some meaning in the ceaseless rhythms of existence: life and death, dream and despair, and the heartbreaking mystery of unanswered prayers.”
“This is the map we wish to construct in our heads: a reliable guide that allows us to avoid those who are not worthy of our time and trust and to embrace those who are. The best indications that our always-tentative maps are faulty include feelings of sadness, anger, betrayal, surprise, and disorientation. It is when these feelings surface that we need to think about our mental instrument of navigation and how to correct it, so that we do not fall into the repetitive patterns of those who waste the learning that is the only consolation for our painful experience.”
“Is it possible to remain hopeful in the face of the insults to our selfhood that time inflicts? Just as courage is a virtue not equally distributed among the young, so we cannot expect it to be uniformly demonstrated in the old. We know and value it when we see, however. It is our ability to contemplate our imminent mortality with equanimity that gives us the opportunity, finally, to be brave.
If we can retain our good humor and interest in others even as the curtain closes, we will have contributed something of inestimable value to those who survive us. We will have thereby fulfilled our final obligation to them and expressed our gratitude for the gift of life that we, undeserving, have been given and that we have enjoyed for so long.”
“So here’s to the role of time, patience, and reflection in our lives. If we believe it is better to build than destroy, better to live and let live, better to be than to be seen, then we might have a chance, slowly, to find a satisfying way though life, this flicker of consciousness between two great silences.”
“The truth may not make us free, but to lie to ourselves in the name of temporary comfort is the ultimate folly. Such deception appears to be a benign dishonesty. No one else is cheated or disadvantaged, but life decisions not based on reality are bound to be faulty. To see ourselves plainly is, perhaps, impossible; it’s hard to get through the day without a rationalization or two. It is when our dream of what we could be collides with the truth of what we are that the clang of cognitive dissonance both deafens and blinds us.”
“The primary goal of parenting, beyond keeping our children safe and loved, is to convey to them a sense that it is possible to be happy in an uncertain world, to give them hope. We do this, of course, by example more than by anything we say to them. If we can demonstrate in our own lives qualities of commitment, determination, and optimism, then we have done our jobs and can use our books of child-rearing advice for doorstops or fireplace fuel. What we cannot do is expect that children who are constantly criticized, bullied, and lectured will think well of themselves and their futures.”
