Last Stand

MY WORLD | OUR WORLD

Does the role make the person?

As my parents get older, I watch them and their friends come to terms with giving up many things. Some struggles in life we are glad to give up, but some things come with a loss of autonomy and the ability to decide for ourselves. I have started to ask myself what things I will want to hold on to longest. How can I best do this? Is embracing change a better strategy than clutching obstinately to something I can no longer be? Perhaps instead of seeing it as giving up something, we can see it as exploring paths we’ve never seen for all the underbrush.

The hardest things to give up are the things we associate with our identity. A preview of this feeling comes when people who are centered on their career decide to retire, but that is often at least a choice. What happens when someone is forced by circumstance to give up an integral part of who they think they are?

I remember a workshop I once attended on supporting others. Supporting others is not just difficult because you have to learn how to give support. It is often difficult because people who need support are not used to being in the role of receiving it. Sometimes we lose not only the ability to do things for ourselves and the control over our lives but also the very abilities that we associate most deeply with who we are. People who can learn to apply themselves to new roles in their life and accept assistance from others in order to do this are more likely to move on and thrive. When we see ourselves as capable of change and growth in all stages of life, we are more able to contribute and remain in control of our own contributions. This involves looking around and listening to others about how we can contribute.

Luckily, we find examples of this elsewhere which we can use to motivate ourselves.

One of my favorite composers, Robert Schumann, started off as an over-dedicated pianist. He was so…

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