Midnight Reflections Of A Psychologist

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Midnight Reflections of a Psychologist:

Often people live in the past, returning to memories of the past, then in the future, making plans and cherishing hopes, dreams, and quite rarely we are in the moment of the present, not seeing what is or seeing what is not in reality - we jump along life, like blinkered horses, having only a narrowed angle of view on what we meet on our way. And we only rarely succeed in expanding our consciousness, having experienced some kind of shock. Expand - provided that we assimilate the experience of the event, learn from it, take our share of responsibility for what happened to us. Unfortunately, this scheme does not work often and not for everyone. That is why we often think about why the world is so unfair to us, why life and events in it become like a worn-out record? Because because of the blinders, we cannot extract new experience from the event and become one step higher in our mental development. We seem to be treading on the same rung, which is our life. But it seems crazy, having climbed the stairs, half or a third of the way to get stuck on a step, not being able to take another step. Most people live in such madness.

But old age is not far off and it is the essence of the path that we have done - the quintessence of the life that we have lived. So I think that old age is a metaphor for life. As a person lived through it, such is old age. And if in old age a person is overtaken by insanity or dementia - in general, his whole life was spent in insanity, if he ends up with a stroke - his whole life is a continuous heart attack and stroke, if by old age he does not walk well from joint pain, then his whole life is a continuous limitation and immobility - standing on the same step, if by old age he became blind or deaf, then in general, even at a younger age, he was not able to see and hear … we can continue this list indefinitely … and not only this concerns bodily diseases. If an old man is lonely by the end of his life, it means he was lonely, perhaps from the first seconds of his life in this world and was lonely in childhood, despite his "loving" parents …

But my reflections on the topic of life as a process and old age as a result bring me to the point where I ask myself the question: what metaphor of old age do I personally like? And I have a definite answer to this question. But how then do I need to move up my stairs so as not to get stuck halfway? How to remove those blinkers that were put on me as a child and widen the angle of vision? How can I look not only behind my blinders, but also inside myself?

I have two simple answers for myself - awareness and responsibility for my choices. It is difficult for me to explain why I do not regret any of my choices, why I do not scold and punish myself for seemingly completely reckless actions. I can only say that I look at all the events of my life as those that have brought me an irreplaceable and unique experience that will certainly come in handy in the future, which means that I understand that my share of responsibility is in everything that happens to me. Responsibility for me is not a heavy burden, but rather something that makes my life easier, makes me more free in my choices and … less sad and disappointed with the structure of the universe. But it often happens that in my life I come into contact with those who, at any cost, want to hand over to me both my share of responsibility and theirs. And here you can't do without mathematics - the multiplication and division table helps. And there is no point in proving and handing over to the opponent his share of responsibility, it is important to take his own, and if he does not take him, leave him at the side of the road under the name "HIS life" - after all, everyone has the right to their own choice. And I stopped waiting and hoping that the gift I left on the road would be picked up by those to whom it was intended. Each has its own path, its own ladder, its own steps of getting stuck. And … everyone has their own old age! I'm only responsible for mine.

(c) Yulia Latunenko