The circle of family life

Interesting isn’t it that when we are little we think our parents are ‘all knowing’  ‘all seeing’  and ‘the centre of our –  and the –  world’  but by the time we reach secondary school,  if not before, our parents become our perceived ‘jailers’ ‘our critics’. They are ‘out of touch’ ‘a joke’ and barely spoken to. By the time we have a family we usually realise that our parents are ‘actually alright’. They might even know a thing or two and sometimes, if we are lucky and not too much harm has been done in the preceeding years, we can become friends for a while. However by the time our parents reach older age we tend to view them as ‘incapable’, ‘out of touch’ ‘a duty‘ and ‘attention seeking’ because they like to speak or see their children occasionally.

All this is of course a great generalisation but nevertheless in most cases our relationship with our parents does seem to follow a similar pattern through the generations.  I am talking about this country of course. Other countries and cultures have a different life pattern.

Is it any wonder therefore that we struggle to know who we really are as we grow up and grow old? Doesn’t it lead to our frustration at how our failing bodies aides and abets the theory of how our mind must surely also be failing? ‘The characters in the recent film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ shows this latter stage so well.

So what is the answer if we are to remain emotionally healthy throughout our life – right up until the last breath has left us?   We will all have our own view on that.  One view could be to live each day as if it were our last and to ride above all the various views of our mental attributes and deficiencies that  life throws us.  Really  knowing who we  are and being comfortable with that, not in an arrogant way but in a peaceful knowing way will help us weather the seasons of life.

And finally, if you are looking for a ‘mission statement’ for life  this may help.  I once found an inscription on a park bench which said “live life with laughter and love” and I think this most certainly is a good recipie for making our lives so much more interesting and so much more fun don’t you think!!