Call the Midlife (42 page)

After spending so much precious time trying to persuade people to buy into my ideas, or me, or whatever I was peddling at the time, now I realize something so obvious it makes me want to scream.

If they don’t want to buy in the first place and it isn’t going to change my life one way or the other, then my only course of action should be to move on straightaway.

Let Go. Let Go. Let Go.

The Dalai Lama was once asked about the single most influential slice of wisdom he’d ever heard. He responded by telling of a fellow lama of his who spoke only two words of English, yet they were enough to ease the deepest woes of most human beings.

Those words were:

The monk in question would sit quietly at the front of gatherings, attending to each person in turn who had queued for hours, sometimes days, to seek his wisdom. After they had finished speaking, he would smile, take their hand and place in their palm a small piece of paper on which were written these six simple words.

A phrase that, ever since I read it, has never left me. I think about it many times every single day. But even so I still sometimes forget that they are available to me. How crazy is that?

Sometimes it’s only the following day that I remember:

This is why we all need to practise some sort of meditation at least once a day. A moment to remind ourselves who we are, where we came from, what’s important in life, what unwelcome surprises might come along to trip us in the next few hours and what we have available in our arsenal to deal with such issues.

And watch what happens when people do the opposite, when they:

Problems need to be dealt with of course, if they can be, but it’s the problems out of our control that we need to let go of. Someone’s attitude towards us, someone who’s done wrong by us, someone who’s spread false rumours about us. Other peoples’ general slander and lethargy will wither and die in our mind’s eye if we cut off their energy supply.

I used to be the world’s worst when it came to reigniting situations, when I perceived myself to be the victim of an injustice. I can’t tell you the effort I wasted and the misery I shepherded, making sure everyone knew how aggrieved I felt.

But now when I see people doing the same thing I quietly shake my head in a mixture of empathy, frustration and embarrassment on their behalf. If they could only see themselves, if they could only hear themselves, if they could only grasp the concept that it’s they who are perpetuating whatever it is that’s driving them to distraction.

Letting go lances the boil instantaneously.

This inner impasse that we previously steadfastly refused to get over disappears into thin air. Inner peace restored. The visceral spanner in the works that stops our natural flow and brings our common sense grinding to a halt removed.

When we become angry, we immediately become more stupid. We also become massively less attractive. And lose our ability to be funny. Three major factors that could otherwise be enhanced to win someone over or get them to see our point of view. Which ironically is what we’re usually trying to achieve when caught up in these situations.

No one has ever cracked a really good joke when they’re angry. No one has ever seduced the focus of their desires when they’re angry. No one has ever made a small child laugh when they’re angry. Our memory, our ability to reason, our vocabulary, our voice, our complexion, our humanity, our grace, our modesty, even our ability to hear, speak and see are all diminished when we allow ourselves to be taken over by the deathly red mist.

And how bad does getting angry make us feel afterwards?

I used to feel a prick for hours, sometimes days.

For a while we kid ourselves that this ugly and confused state will convey to even our most resilient adversaries that our passion runs deeper than they realized: ‘You’re messing with the wrong guy here!’ – things like that. The type of twisted logic I clung to for years when possessed by such madness.

But, of course, that’s not what they think at all. They merely see
someone self-destructing in front of them, generally losing the plot and making them feel a whole lot better about themselves in the process.

Becoming angry in otherwise entirely civil situations only confirms one thing:

‘I am an angry person anyway because of stuff I’ve not figured out yet. And right now I’m blaming ALL THAT STUFF ON YOU AND THE REST OF THE WORLD.’

Three other traits frequently on display in these situations are:

1. The aggressor tends to be in a superior role to the people he/ she is shouting at, i.e. their boss or their employer.

2. He/she is shouting at someone whom they have paid to perform a service.

3. He/she is screaming at and going blue in the face over a lover, partner, loved one or best friend.

All three of these scenarios have one thing in common. They are all situations where the aggressor has a reason to suspect that he/she can get away with such unreasonable and unacceptable behaviour.

There is no doubt in my mind that a direct correlation exists between power, intimacy and aggression.

But when we cease to be aggressive, our overall sense of perspective immediately begins to return. Slowly peaking up from behind the sofa where it’s been hiding till the tsunami has passed. People, if they love us, will begin to forgive us and edge a little closer to see if the fire is truly out.

We will once again be able to ascertain and differentiate between surmountable objections and insurmountable conditions.

Either way the situation will move on, if not completely resolve itself.

Anger, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, is entirely useless.

And as you exhale that breath you’ve been holding the first thing you will experience is a surge of relief. You can’t help feeling more relaxed when you repeat those two little words.

If we really want to pick up our worries, insecurities, our frustrations, our sadness, our paranoia and run with them, screaming out to the world what a terrible time we’re having, then they’ll always be there for us to do so.

But letting go can become a habit that will change your life for the better.

When I’m really on my game, even before I step out of the house – or how about even before I’ve swung one leg out of bed – I will have put myself on emotional red-alert. I wake up with all my little checks and balances already flashing away in my stay-calm-stay-positive routine. If I show signs of snapping early on, I know I’m fragile and need to be careful that day.

I remind myself the world is exactly as I left it the night before, when I was fine, so if it’s not changed something inside me must have.

Sometimes I think about Gandhi’s view of negotiation, the fact that only a fool would not first consider the wishes of the opposing party: ‘Why would he want to give me anything I want, while giving up anything he wants?’ he used to say, making the brilliant and obvious point that there has to be conciliation for things to move on. In Gandhi’s eyes, negotiation was conciliation.

And so we must negotiate with ourselves before even contemplating engaging with anyone else or the universe.

If we can take the sting out of any potential conflict right at the outset, everyone in the room will feel they have a chance. And that attitude has to begin within ourselves. What begins as a pleasurable and reasonable experience has a better chance of developing in the same vein. Everyone will be happier, everyone will be more willing to open up, everything will be more positive and more productive.

‘He doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to do that.’

Fine. Then what
do
they want to do? There’s no other sustainable way.

Peoples’ eyes, their minds, their views, their balance sheets, their secrets, their misgivings, their humanity and desire to get a deal done all need to be accepted and taken into account.

The ears have it, always.

Stay cool, stay relaxed.

My most extreme and testing ‘let go, let go, let go’ moments happen either between my mum and me, or when I’m at work.

Both are exaggerated versions of normality for different reasons.

Mum has just turned ninety. She’s been an amazing mother and a tower of strength to myself and my elder brother and sister. She deserves to have the best time possible for every second of whatever she has left. So, why would I do anything to stop that from happening?

If she says things that might hurt or upset me, so what? That’s not her intention. I know this because of all the love, protection, advice and support she has given me over the years.

So why is she saying them? Well, here’s the thing: it doesn’t actually matter. She’s allowed to say whatever the hell she likes as far as I’m concerned. Because that’s where ‘let go, let go, let go’ comes in – I’ve learned to apply it to almost everything she says and does. Nothing I say in reaction is ever going to change the way she thinks now. On
any
subject.

If she wants to have a sly dig at me, or tear me off a strip in front of people to show them that she’s still the boss, then . . . honestly, good for her.

Is she saying these things because she’s overwhelmed by a sense of unfinished business, disapproval, or just needing to impose her authority – or is that all in my head, and the reality is that Mum’s just sitting there being old and tired. And yes, a bit grumpy.

Top Ten Grumpy Film Titles:

Grumpiness definitely has a sell-by date but as long as we see it for the good it can do, catch it, embrace it and learn to love it before it begins to go off, it can be one of our most valuable midlife friends.

The Grump can get you to where you want to go. Sometimes the Grump is the best way forward. The Grump does not want to move in. The Grump is merely a peddler passing through town. Only a fool would not lend an ear to the lessons the Grump has to give.

Grumpy Old Man Syndrome should never be confused with Miserable Old Sod Syndrome, from which there is seldom salvation. Miserable Old Sods are the twisted, creaking creatures who scurry out snarling and snorting, wielding a carving knife to stab into kiddies’ treasured footballs when they land in their garden by accident.

When I was a small child I spent hours and hours trying to correlate how any ex-kid could grow up to become a fully qualified Miserable Old Sod. How does this happen? Or maybe they’re an
as-yet-undiscovered subspecies that were never kids. That would explain things.

When it comes to grumpiness, however, we are talking more weedlike, i.e. just a flower in the wrong place.

Grumpiness begins to kick in when other things begin to check out. It’s purgatory on earth. But also the dawn of acceptance, true contentment, not taking ourselves seriously any more and finally seeing the world and everything in it for what it really is. A vast ongoing display of entropy affected by every single micro-action of every single movement, thought, word, raindrop, breath of wind . . . that takes place here on Earth and consequently in the universe.

The Grump lets us know we haven’t quite realized this yet by desperately clinging to the driftwood of our past. The songs we spent the first half of our lives listening to are songs that the second half of our lives can’t possibly live up to.

‘Why are we here?’ Becomes ‘Why should I bother being here?’ But only for a while.

The Grump does not want us to get old. And the more the Grump dwells on this, the grumpier the Grump gets. Until one day the Grump realizes that we are not getting old, we are merely getting older.
There is no old if we don’t want there to be
.

We need to embrace the Grump, thank it for for the heads-up and assure it we’re going to be OK. Whereupon it will mellow, relax, lie back and hopefully drift off into a deep, smiling, dreamless sleep. From which it will then awake like a reformed Grim Reaper minus the cloak and scythe.