I’m fortunate that as I get older, several things have come together to give me a deeper view of life.

That’s the best and easiest way to describe it. I’m not a prophet, a seer, or a monk. I am thinking more thoughtfully about life and what I expect from it.

My life, my wife, my work in therapy, my work at meditation,  my collapse and divorce, my heart disease and diabetes, my disabled foot, and my embrace of a spiritual direction have all taught me what a deeper view of life means to me.

I’m just beginning.

(Photo, Zip wants me to play with him.)

One of the bigger things I’ve learned is to understand that change, crisis, sickness, death, and impermanence are not harmful, terrifying, or shocking aspects of life.

They are life itself. My dogs and loved ones will die; that’s what they do. I will die; that’s what I do.

Uncertainty and impermanence are the basis of life, a part of everyone’s life at any age and in almost all circumstances.

None of us, not even our many billionaires, can build a fortress around reality that can not be penetrated and deny it for all of our lives. There is no peace or contentment in worrying all the time about things that cannot be foreseen or controlled.

Working as a hospice volunteer, I’m surprised again and again by loving family members who cannot accept the very idea of sickness and death; they see life as something to be lived forever without pain or sickness. Death is an outrage.

No life could continue if we lived without change, surprise, and loss. What happens is how I see it.

In some curious ways, I have been grateful for pain and change; it has made me a better and safer human being. I am no longer surprised by life; I embrace it. I value my days and good fortune.

I read one quote from a philosopher about the corn analogy.

“If a grain of corn were not impermanent,” he wrote, “it could not become a corn plant. She could not grow into an adult if a tiny child were not impermanent.”

Change and trouble don’t mean to me that life is not worth living. It often brings wisdom and strength along with it. We learn that life is almost always worth living; the spiritual challenge is to learn from our suffering.

I value life more profoundly and dearly because of its uncertainty and surprise. My struggles have made me value life, and that is a lesson that is hard to learn but precious. It’s a more profound and calming view of life.

I’ve learned that if I live in the present moment as entirely as possible, I won’t feel envy or regret later.

I don’t worry much about the future; it will do what it wishes.  I am slowly but purposefully learning how to care for those I love and who are closest to me. That has made me a better human being.

When I finally accepted that life is fluid, changing, and full of sorrows and joy, I was no longer stunned when things decay and die. Because everything I love, every friend, partner, dog, cat, donkey, will decay and die. So will I.

And I don’t wish to spend my life mourning life; I want to spend life celebrating it. I’m working to remain peaceful and content when things don’t go my way; when awful politicians win elections,  some things are sacred, and there is always prosperity, want, growth, decline, success, and failure.

I call it my contract with life. Life does what it has to do,  and So do I.

I am closer and closer to living in peace, love, and harmony.