Preparing to "Live"

I once knew a partner at a large firm who told me this: "I can stand what I'm doing right now, because I'm going to retire at 55."

"And then what?" I asked.

"I'm going to live my own life for a change." Her eyes glistened for a moment on her otherwise exhausted face.

"And how many years away is that?"

"Eighteen," she said, her voice sinking.

"And when you are living your own life, what will you do?"

She looked at me with a mixture of bewilderment and sadness before she finally said in a low voice, "I don't really know, but I'm sure it will come to me."

"When you were a freshman in college, what did you want to grow up to be?" I asked.

Immediately, she said, "I was an English major. I wanted to be a fiction writer."

"Do you write fiction now?" I already knew the answer that would come.

"I don't have time," she said.

I once knew an executive who checked his portfolios and balances daily, constantly calculating and re-calculating the value of his house, the reserves he would need in the coming years to sustain his lifestyle, how much longer he had to "earn an income," and on and on.

I asked him what he wanted to talk about with me. He said, "I hate my life."

"Why?" I asked.

"I am so busy worrying about retirement -- I can't relax."

"Is there anything about your life the way it is right now that you like -- that feels rewarding? What are your passions?"

He stared at me for a long moment before saying, "No ... nothing comes to mind."

I am sure the reader knows individuals who are caught in this bind, or perhaps the reader knows she is in this bind. It is a common condition, causing great amounts of suffering, depression, anxiety and medication. I call it Preparing to Live Syndrome (PtLS).

The sufferer sees life as an endless chain of meaningless, two-dimensional experiences that lack passion, value or meaning but that he must tolerate, because those experiences lead to some future point when all will come together, and life will again take on sparkle and value. In the meantime, there is nothing the sufferer can do, and the solution always lies out of reach, in the future.

Of course, there is no recognized PtLS. It is my own coinage. But it is one I have much experience with -- and not just in clients but in myself. This is because PtLS is deeply embedded in modern Western culture. It is common for Americans to live in some degree of regret about the past and in some degree of uncertainty about the future. However uncertain most people are about the future, few would surrender their hold on it.

Weird, isn't it?

It is uncommon to focus attention on the here and now and recognize it for what it is: the one moment of the only life we will ever have that we truly possess. Rare is the individual who has come to completely accept that the past is no more than a memory and the future an assumption about unborn events.

What is left when we truly accept this? I would submit that the vast freedom of here and now is what's left. I am not the first to make this assertion; it has been one of the central claims of many spiritual-practice traditions for millennia. However, many people repeatedly encounter this notion and ignore it, muttering to themselves they don't have time for such folly.

To assume that one doesn't have time to grasp the one moment truly in her possession is to fall prey to the fallacy that there are an endless stream of such moments going on and on into the future, only to be seized when the time is right. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

This assumption about the unbrokenness of our lives leads people into the PtLS trap, in which we trade what we truly have for what does not yet -- and may never -- exist. Then, living in barely registered pain, many search for relief in addiction, pay raises and promotions and all manner of frantic behavior.

NO POSTPONEMENTS

How would today's lawyer, living and working in an environment whose very promises and foundations are in many ways built on PtLS, begin to step away from that line of thinking and more fully into the life he is living?

He can begin with this, a promise to himself: "Today is the only day that belongs to me; I will live it the best way I know how."

What could that mean? It could mean that when working, he will give full attention to the work, doing it as well as possible. It will also mean that he will make time not to work -- to do something pleasurable, not numbing or distracting but pleasurable, such as dropping into a partner's office to say hello and ask about the kids.

It will mean taking a few moments in a quiet office with the doors closed and phones off to stare out the window and notice the city lights.

It will mean beginning to scratch out the stories that have been waiting for a far-off retirement to get written, in whatever moments of solitude he can grab from the day's schedule.

It will mean touching a son's head, taking a daughter for a trip to the hardware store, holding a spouse for extra moments before leaving in the morning, and saying, "Hi, how are you?" to a secretary upon arrival.

It will mean taking your foot just slightly off the gas pedal, remembering that wherever it is you think you are going, you have, in fact, already arrived.

James Dolan, M.A., is a professional coach and psychotherapist with 30 years of experience in private practice in the Dallas area. He works with lawyers and physicians in improving their business development communications, internal relations and leadership and client-patient retention. His e-mail address is dolan.james@sbcglobal.net.