Happier with Age - Awareness of Impermanence

I have always thought about how I spend my time. It goes way back to my first job after college.

In 1983, I graduated from college and went to work in the tax department at Price Waterhouse (now known as PwC) in San Jose, California.

Because we billed our clients for our time, we had to track our time manually, in 15-minute increments, in timesheets so we could generate monthly client invoices. (That same year, Price Waterhouse just started using computers and software: 30-pound Compaq Portable computers and Lotus 1-2-3 for spreadsheets).

Every day, I still ask myself, how will I spend my time?
Typically, I spend close to 12 hours on sleep, meals, exercise, and errands. For me, these are nonnegotiable hours.

That leaves me with around 12 hours of discretionary time. Free time.
But free to do what – read, write, beach, motorbike, relationships, music, movies, travel, meditate, chill?

Sometimes I pace around my condo, looking out at the sea, trying to decide what to do today. I remind myself that life is a time allocation challenge. Soon, today will disappear.

The older I become, the more poignant the question of how I spend my time becomes.
Time is a limited resource. Life is impermanent, I tell myself.

Awareness of Impermanence
The work of influential Stanford psychologist Laura Cartensen came up in two books I read: Bittersweet, by Susan Cain and Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande.

She also gave a popular TED Talk - Laura Carstensen - Older People Are Happier

Here are some of her main ideas:
- As people get older, they become happier, calmer, and more optimistic about the world.
- The key is not age per se, but the awareness of impermanence, that time is limited.
- Awareness of impermanence brings wisdom to our life choices.
- As people become more aware that their remaining time is limited, their priorities change.
- How we spend our time depends on our perception of how much time we have.
- As our horizons contract, our focus shifts to the here and now, everyday pleasures, and the people closest to us.
- Most young people see their future as expansive.
- Older people begin to see their time as finite.
- People diagnosed with serious illness show similar shifts, even if they are relatively young.

I like to think of Carstensen’s model as a continuum with two dials – one for Curiosity and one for Meaning. Young people have a higher Curiosity setting. Older people have a higher Meaning setting.

Conclusion
Impermanence is not simply something to endure. It is one of life’s greatest teachers.
When you know your time is limited, it can strip away the trivial; your perspective narrows, you focus more on what matters, care less about ambition, status, getting ahead.

At 67, I still have an explorer’s mind and plan to continue expanding. I hope I can keep going like my dad. In his 80s, he had many firsts: parachuted out of an airplane, hiked the Great Wall of China, cruised to the North Pole on a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker, hiked the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim.

Lastly, I’m happy to report that Ang is doing well after having been in the hospital! Her fall semester begins next week (she’s a schoolteacher at a British international school in Chiang Mai) and she will start teaching yoga in her community. I'm proud to call her my friend.

Thank you for reading,
Peter