How to Learn the Meaning of a Minute | Healthy Aging Series: S11 E15
I loved working at UPS. I was a load supervisor on the South Ramp. Mind you, that was 30 years ago. If you ever worked there, I know you would agree that the ramp was organized confusion. And yes, it was stressful.
At any given time, there were dozens and dozens of aircraft, 747s, Airbus A300s, and MD 11s. There were hundreds of yellow tugs pulling trains of white containers that we called Cans. There were Load Crews driving K-loaders and Belt-loaders to their next aircraft.
And that doesn’t include all the other support vehicles, mechanics and people who helped taxi aircraft out to the runway. It really was an amazing place to work.
Did I say it was stressful?
My job was to make sure that the door of the aircraft that I was loading was closed not one second past the load time. I depended on my crew to bring me the Cans that were assigned to the flights to Denver, Chicago, or Newark. If you were late closing the door, you better have a good reason.
Once I was late because I thought I loaded a Can out of order. The pilot shut down the plane and opened the door. I was right in the first place. I should’ve trusted myself.
Once I was late closing the door and eventually had to reload the cargo onto another aircraft because one of the tug drivers, ever so slightly, grazed the wing of a 737 with the door of a can. Not good.
I vividly remember standing on the flightline, watching a can that I needed, going in the opposite direction with only seconds left before the door of the aircraft needed to be closed. There have been very few times in my life that I have tried to pull out my hair, and this was one of them.
Have I mentioned that it was stressful?
The saying at UPS was, “They teach you the meaning of a minute.”
Needless to say, I grew during those three years and have fond memories of the working there.
Time is an interesting thing to ponder.
In psychotherapy, I’ve often seen people who have difficulties in life, and have experienced anxiety and depression due to their orientation to either the past or the future.
This is a complete oversimplification of mental health, but often people with depression tend to have difficulty letting go of the past, and people with anxiety, have a difficult time letting go of the future.
Again, a very simplistic way of looking at mental health and time. Having said that, there is some truth in it.
Mindfulness uses grounded-breathing, quietness, and a focus on the present moment to help reorient people.
This season is Aging with an Attitude. And I’m looking at Fitness Revolutionaries, Folk Tales, and Stoicism. Kind of a mixed bag. They will all come together, or not, by the end of the season.
This episode is about Stoicism
Stoics had a practice that helped them orient themselves to the present. Maybe it was more of a way of seeing the past differently, and it helped them maintain their tranquility.
Fatalism
William Irvine, in his book, “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy,” writes, “According to Epictetus we should keep firmly in mind that we are merely actors in a play written by someone else, more precisely the Fates.”
He goes on to write, “If we are assigned by the Fates to play the role of beggar, we should play the role well; and likewise, if we are assigned to play the role of King. If we want our life to go well, Epictetus says, we should rather than wanting events to conform to our desires, make our desires conform to Events; we should in other words want events “to happen as they do happen.”
I suspect that in our modern-western, critical- thinking minds most of us don’t buy into the idea of Fatalism.
After all, didn’t John Conner tell us,
“The future is not set. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves.”
None of us wants to lose control of our future to anyone but ourselves.
Fair enough.
We’ll see in a bit that Stoics took an active role in making their future.
I think Stoics saw the past, and at times the future, as tranquility robbers. Those tranquility robbers from the past included regrets, remorse, grief, guilt, and contrition.
“Stoics are advising us to be fatalistic with respect to the past, to keep firmly in mind that the past cannot be changed,” explains Irvine.
You cannot do a single thing to change the past. Nothing.
So how does one learn the meaning of a minute? Time is life and life is time. When we talk about learning the meaning of a minute, we’re really talking about finding meaning in life.
Here’s what the stoic’s advised:
First, learn from the past, then let it go.
Maybe easier said than done.
There are lessons that we can learn from the past. I remember my first day as a member of the United States Air Force. I was at the recruitment station for a physical and then to be sworn in. Of course I talked with other recruits. I was one day short of being 18. One recruit was a 22-year-old recent college graduate. I was a little confused because he could’ve become a commissioned officer, but instead chose to join as an enlisted person. Out of curiosity, I asked, “Do you think you’ll ever regret that decision?” “No way,” he said. “I’ll learn from it but no regrets.” Spoken like a true Stoic.
Second, embrace the moment.
Take a deep breath. Clear your mind. Think about what you’re doing right now. What does it mean to embrace the moment?
Maybe it means practicing Negative Visualization. I wrote about it in an earlier episode. This means visualizing what you have now and then imagining your life without those things. What do you have in your life now? Your health. A job. Family. Home. Friends. All could be gone, but you have them now.
Even if you’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness, you have your life and health now. The mirror version of Negative Visualization is refusing to think about your present life being better. This isn’t an admonition to not make plans for improving your lot in life like learning new skills, finding new friends, and so on. It simply means looking at where you are right now and accepting where you are in your life, finding tranquility with who you are, where you work, what your health is, including your weight, right now. Embrace the present.
Fatalism doesn’t mean you wallow in your fortune or misfortune. John Conner was right, mostly. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves. There is nothing we can do about the past, time to let go, and then strive for something.
Third, be indifferent to success, but open to natural gain.
“Although Stoics would’ve been satisfied with next to nothing,” writes Irvine, “they nevertheless strove for something.” I’m slightly unconvinced that they would’ve been satisfied with nothing. That’s easy for them to say because the Stoics we know were wealthy, but they saw the ills of prosperity and realized that prosperity created lots of problems and stress. Better to learn to live a more modest lifestyle. I think learning to live with less is good advice.
Fatalism, in the Stoic mind, affects how we view the past and present. Moving on from past mistakes. Of course, making amends is an important practice as it relates to the past, which would include apologizing, paying restitution, and changing behavior. But the sooner we accept the past and even forgive ourselves, the better.
A Pool Cue Taught Him the Meaning of a Minute
I worked with a man who had had a brain injury while he was working security at a bar. In the process of breaking up a fight, he was struck by a Pool Cue. Initially, he was OK, but later that evening he had a stroke, and he was mostly paralyzed from the neck down. At first, he was angry at God for doing this to him. That went on for most of a decade. After several months of therapy, I pointed out that it wasn’t God‘s fault that he decided to work at one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. He was the one that made that decision. In the follow-up sessions, he told me that, “You’re right, it wasn’t God’s fault, it was my fault.”
That began months of self-loathing.
In follow up sessions, we started looking at the much younger version of himself that made the decision to work at a bar, and we decided that maybe the best thing to do was to forgive him for being such a dumbass.
We did some creative dialogue with the younger version of himself, and he was finally able to let go of the past. He was finally able to experience some tranquility.
Was it supposed to happen? Stoics would say, yes. Regardless of whether you take that tact, everyone would agree that it did happen.
Maybe reframing it as “it was meant to happen” helps us move from second-guessing and asking, “what if” about the past, to accepting and asking, “What am I going to do now?” It’s re-orientating your viewpoint from the past to the present.
Fatalism makes an ever so slight change in the way we see things. At least a change in the way we view things that we cannot change.
Fatalism doesn’t prevent us from thinking about the present and the future. And it doesn’t prevent us from doing something about our life circumstances.
Fatalism simply helps us disconnect from and learn lessons from the past.
I visit the past often. All those memories are me. My memories make me unique, and they make me who I am.
I have written in several journals, mostly memories from my past. I’ve learned the meaning of a minute while I write about them. I visit them.
And then, I put them back on the shelf and continue living my life.
