The Philosophical Me

Based upon the idea that “midlife” brings us a chance to reflect and learn more about ourselves. I’ve realised, looking back on my own life, that having my own personal mantra to live by helps.
A mantra is defined in the Oxford Language as “a statement or slogan repeated frequently. By repeating your mantra out loud or silently within your own mind, it can help guide your thoughts to the right frame of mind to achieve your goal or task.”
For me it has been more often a silent thought process that has worked.

My mantras have come to me naturally over time as I have progressed through life.
It started when I was just fourteen standing by my Mum’s bedside one Saturday Afternoon. It was January 14th, I remember the date because two days later my Mum died and this was the last moments I would get to spend with her. I had travelled alone by bus and train and then walked from the railway station. I had used money from my Saturday job in a bakery leaving at lunchtime after the morning shift.
My Mum had been in and out of hospital many times over the years. She went in and then when she was better she came out. I didn’t for one moment, at the tender age of fourteen, imagine this time was going to be any different. She looked normal, she wasn’t sickly pale or too tired to talk as she had been on other occasions. She was confined to bed but again that was normal. We chatted about every day life, my journey to the hospital, how school was going, how things were at home. Nothing specific, just everyday life.

Towards the end of visiting hours she turned to me and fixing me with that motherly stare that was hard to avoid and always meant she had something to say that required my focused attention gave me my first mantra. “Make sure you go out of this life with more than you came in” . These were some of the last words she ever spoke to me. They stayed with me forever and grew in depth as I matured and began to understand more of the hard and gruelling life she had been born into. Those words drove my ambition to constantly move forward and make more of myself.

In my late thirties as my marriage dissolved around me I sought counselling to deal with the mix of emotions that swelled within me as I came to terms with the fact that the vows I had made on my wedding day on Christmas Eve 1994 were not going to be forever. This also meant that my children were going to find themselves in a single parent family, something I never wanted for them, after my own family life had been cut so wickedly short.
It was during this counselling that I learnt about personal happiness and how my mixed emotions would ultimately affect my children if I didn’t choose to change anything. Thus I picked up my second mantra “everyone in life deserves to be happy and if you are not happy there is only one person who can do anything about it, You!” It was a tough lesson to learn but one that has stood me in great stead ever since.

During my time as a single parent I focused all my energy on making as comfortable a life as I could for my children. I committed myself to ensuring that all the hours spent developing my career which brought in money to keep a roof over our heads, food in our tummies and all the bills paid would also give us the freedom to have holidays. At first this was a two week holiday abroad each summer but grew over time to include the cultural exploration of European cities during February half term and ultimately a whole month off, when we were 16,18 and 50 to explore different parts of America. From these travels I realised that “I didn’t want to be one of those old people who sat on their rocking chair in their 70’s or 80’s looking back on my life thinking I wish I had done this or experienced that”. By then it is too late, you need to do the things you want whilst you are healthy enough to do so. My hubby and I now both live by this mantra although Covid definitely restricted plans for nearly 2 years!

When I found myself retraining in my early 50’s to work in the funeral business it stimulated a lot of thoughts about life. I knew already that life was not forever but sitting writing eulogies for people, I had never met, in the hope that the service I was planning would bring some comfort to the families left behind, I sometimes found myself pondering life. Why do some people reach a ripe old age whilst others die so young? It was during this period in my life that I realised that Christianity wasn’t for me.

I was an independent funeral celebrant so not being religious, in the traditional sense, didn’t affect my work. The more I thought about it, particularly the fact that people live their lives according to what was apparently written down in the Bible, based upon stories that had taken place thousands of years ago, the more I found it totally bizarre.
Project forward another few hundred years and will people be living their lives according to J K Rowling and everything written about the world of Harry Potter? After all sales of her books probably equal if not exceed those of the Bible! So if I’m not religious then on what is my life based?

As part of my midlife adventure I’ve addressed this question and dabbled in looking on the surface of many religions and beliefs . On the surface Buddhism seems more aligned to my thinking but then again I’ve also had a strong fascination with the beliefs of the North American Indians.
I also find Covid interesting, in that it seems to me and I’m sure many others, that nature was taking back control, if only temporarily. While the world was in lockdown people’s strong attachment to materialism was halted in favour of pure survival. Was Covid “sent” to teach us new lessons? Was it here to effectively wipe out a percentage of the world’s population which after all, if I’ve understood David Attenborough correctly, is a definitive reason for a lot of the issues we now have with climate change and the resulting mass production needed to feed an ever increasing populous.

During the three years that I spent in the funeral business I grew to realise that my belief in life is very simplistic.
Life is like a yellow brick road, there is always a start and inevitably always an end. The paths we wander, the daisy fields of sunshine we pass through, the dark angry storms we encounter are all part of the great adventure that is life.

Along the yellow brick road we will meet many people, some will be lifelong friends, others just passers by. There will be times we take a wrong turn, other times when we feel like we are going around in circles but this is all part of the path we tread, the lessons we need to learn.
The memories we have of people who we have met en route who loved us but had to pass on from this earthly life leave behind an indelible impression, they were part of that great journey. We will never forget them, they will always be there for us, to talk to, confide in and to shine a light in our heart. Their legacy is in the beautiful memories and the positive experiences we shared and still hold dear. That legacy shines in your heart always and echoes in our memories.

My Mum is with me every day. I don’t speak to her every day but when I do she listens. I know she hears me because when I ask her for help it comes. It might be that in the cold light of day from a restless night a solution shows itself to a problem that has been bearing down on me or when I ask her to look after someone I love they are returned to me alive and well.

It might be that during your midlife adventure if you give it some time and thought your beliefs will show themselves and like me you will find peace in knowing where you sit in this vast universe and on this great journey that is life.
I’ll finish this piece with a short poem I came across when I was working on a eulogy one day which in its own way answers my previous question about the length of life.

“A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam,
And for a brief moment its glory
And beauty belong to our world
But then it flies again
And though we wish it could have stayed
We feel lucky to have seen it”