Life hacks from my 101 year old gran

Last week I had a few days in Edinburgh with family. It’s a city we all love, and there was time to gander without obligation. And yet, as I wondered I felt a sense of agitated dissatisfaction, impatience without cause. The inappropriateness of this struck me as I sat in an inactive electronic massage chair waiting for the family. I was under slept and over caffeinated, and had allowed anxiety to leech in. Perhaps some introspective truth coaching might improve my demeanour.

To do this, I simply asked myself - what is true about this moment now, if I really boil it down? Oliver Burkeman suggests a version of this exercise, and I’ve often found it helpful. None of us were injured or ill, we’d all had food, and we had time in front of us to explore an enchanting city. When I’m anxious or bothered, just simply acknowledging that in this very moment - nothing urgent actually needs doing. If there was, I’d be doing it rather than cogitating on it. I therefore just need to attend to what is before me - it’s a simple truth I often forget.

I wish I could say that with this thought, the scales fell from my eyes, and I floated over to my family as if they were all that mattered in the world. Alas, beliefs do not always align with behaviour. A few years ago I wrote a masters dissertation arguing that ‘presence is a virtue’, quietly hoping that the virtue might ensue from the writing. I can now assure you there is zero correlation between writing about a virtue and actually developing it.

I grumped around a little more, though now also chastising myself for the unreasonableness of my grump in some Eeyore type vicious cycle. That was until I remembered my gran, and things began to shift.

A word about my gran

Gran turned 101 last week and remains a hero in my eyes, even when she can’t remember my name. The secret to her longevity will of course be multifactorial. Beyond genetics, her lifestyle has been one of engagement and curiosity. For the vast majority of her life she has been ceaselessly active - painting, volunteering, gardening, playing bridge, reading, going on interesting holidays. Though it wasn’t until she went into a nursing home a few years back with significantly diminished faculties that one of her life hacks became clear.

When I visit gran, she tends to be found in prime position in the nursing home lounge, involved in whatever activity or conversation is going on. Her mind is muddled and her memory is messy, but this habit of planting herself into whatever is going has preserved her well.

Age has not diminished my grans appetite to taste whatever of life is left for her. I remember taking her kayaking around Guernsey as an 86 year old, and if I remember correctly, she went hitch-hiking with my cousin that same year. Whenever I brought friends to her house (including some of you readers), she met them with curiosity and interest. She was forever meeting new people, helping old friends, cooking new recipes, and navigating her way on facebook in the inimitable style of someone born in the 1920’s. Life was always full, but somehow also spacious enough for more.

All this to say, the implicit advice I get from watching my gran live is simply - get involved! See people having fun - get involved! See a problem needing sorted - get involved! See something that looks interesting to learn, or a new person to speak to - get involved! I’m sure there is plenty she chose not to get involved with, but ‘getting involved’ has been a pronounced theme in her life. Perhaps it’s the key factor in ensuring that you don’t stand and mope from the sidelines.

This memory nudged me to action that day in Edinburgh. I became absorbed by the company of my wife and children, and our joint attention on whatever was before us. Gradually, impatience evaporated and gave way to presence.

Finding the present

My emotional state shifted that day not primarily through thoughts and beliefs, but through action - through getting involved. I often forget that it’s significantly easier to regulate emotions through the body, than by using the mind. In fact, as far as I can tell, the main catalyst to becoming more present is getting out of your head. You cannot think yourself out of a funk, you have to be drawn out of it by being absorbed by something else - music, nature, exercise, people. That something is often staring you in the face, or in my case, often tugging at your sleeve - it’s up to us whether we choose to attend to it.

Two conversations I’ve had come to mind when analysing the very pedestrian story above, I’ve mentioned them both before on Substack, so please forgive the repetition. The first conversation I made into a podcast was with Oliver Burkeman, exploring his question ‘how do I embrace my finitude?’ The point that Oliver would like to clarify for anyone who wishes to listen, is that we are inescapably limited - and we would do well to embrace our limitations. Realising that I am hopelessly limited to deal with most of my anxieties, kind of liberates me to be where I am at any given moment - to deal with this small pocket of life I am inhabiting.

The second conversation this brings to mind was with Jill Bolte-Taylor, an academic neurosurgeon at Harvard who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain (I’ve written about her in this previous post). She speaks powerfully about this in her viral TED talk, explaining the way that experiencing the world through her right hemisphere allowed her to be utterly present to the moment she was in. Jill has since cultivated ways of living that allow her to be more present - for her this means art, contemplation, immersion in nature. Her story is a reminder of the choice we have in how we show up.

To finish, it’s worth nodding to the psychiatrist Victor Frankl’s suggestions on living a meaningful life. To me, this means one where one is both more satisfied and more present. Frankl thought we human’s often look for meaning in the wrong places, namely money, sex, and power. All of these are defined by scarcity, by a sense of never quite having enough. He suggests that we can find an endless well of meaning through spirituality, moral action, relationships and creativity - all of which are ends in themselves. To be present is to be satisfied with what you’ve got - this takes both awareness that what you have is of value, and an active embrace of it.

Who knew that a grumpy walk around Edinburgh could birth such thoughts?

A word on the next month or so

If you are one of those people who is a paid subscriber - thank you ever so much, I deeply appreciate it. If you are an unpaid subscriber - I still very much appreciate you reading. I’m going to suspend payments for the next month or so as I take some time away from this habit to prepare the next podcast series. This will involve editing content and writing reflections to go with the episodes. You can expect the next newsletter in about four-six weeks, and it will hopefully contain the launch of Season III - or at least a taster of it. In the forthcoming episodes I’ll be talking to a range of fascinating thinkers and exploring the questions they think we should be asking ourselves. We’ll be talking about our relationship with technology, parenting, childhood, education, values, purpose and much else besides. Until then, do please feel free to send this on to anyone you think might appreciate it - I’d love to gather a few more readers and listeners for the launch of the next podcast season.