{"id":2246,"date":"2017-05-01T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=2246"},"modified":"2017-04-28T16:09:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T20:09:51","slug":"get-life-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2017\/05\/get-life-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Get a Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see “Begin Again” as an ideal theme for this season. We have the supreme opportunity now in the autumn of our midlife to begin again. How shall we reinvent our Selves? What new programs, projects and passions are on the horizon for us? Please send me your stories of change, transition, and transformation. Our shared experiences serve to inspire and empower us all.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks. <\/em><\/p>\n

xxQueen Mama Donna<\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The following is the Commencement Address given by Anna Quindlen at\u00a0<\/em>Villanova University in 1999. I love the double meaning of the word \u201ccommencement.\u201d It means at once a graduation, an ending, and the start of something new. And ideally that new beginning is on a higher level than the one we just left.<\/em><\/p>\n

Get a Life<\/strong>
\nBy Anna Quindlen<\/em><\/p>\n

So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: get a life. A real life, not\u00a0a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger\u00a0house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you\u00a0blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?<\/p>\n

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on\u00a0a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a\u00a0red tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a cheerio with her thumb and first finger.<\/p>\n

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who\u00a0love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Each time\u00a0you look at your diploma, remember that you are still a student, still\u00a0learning how to best treasure your connection to others. Pick up the\u00a0phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Kiss your Mom. Hug your Dad.<\/p>\n

Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas in the\u00a0suburban neighborhood where you grew up; look at a full moon hanging\u00a0silver in a black, black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is\u00a0the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for\u00a0granted.<\/p>\n

Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.<\/p>\n

Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well.<\/p>\n

But if you do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough.<\/p>\n

It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes. It\u00a0is so easy to take for granted the color of the azaleas, the sheen of\u00a0the limestone on Fifth Avenue, the color of our kids eyes, the way the\u00a0melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It\u00a0is so easy to exist instead of live.<\/p>\n

I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened\u00a0to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my\u00a0druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned\u00a0from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all.<\/p>\n

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is\u00a0not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I\u00a0learned to look at all the good in the world and to try to give some of\u00a0it back because I believed in it completely and utterly. And I tried to\u00a0do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.<\/p>\n

By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz\u00a0on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn\u00a0to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do\u00a0you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* ***
\nDonna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see “Begin Again” as an ideal theme for this season. We have the supreme opportunity now in the autumn of our midlife to begin again. How shall we reinvent our Selves? What new programs, projects and passions are on the horizon for us? Please send me your stories of change, transition, and transformation. 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