A morbid thought occurred to me in the run-up to Rosh HaShanah (I am post-dating this for after Yom Tov; it's too sad for Erev):
Middle Age is when you stop davening for what you want to happen, and start davening instead regarding what you are afraid will happen...
There is a great deal to say about this, but do you know what I mean?
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
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For me it is that the "what I want to happen" is more focused on my children than on me.
ReplyDeleteI'm not middle aged, but I do suffer from mental health issues and I daven regarding things I'm afraid will happen. Often it's the OCD or depression talking. Not sure how that fits your model.
ReplyDeleteMike - I hear.
ReplyDeleteDaniel - An interesting point. I wasn't thinking of Middle Age as an expression of anxiety; I was thinking more of the limiting of a person's scope, and the shifting of expectations. But yes, anxiety will have the same result.
Can you expand on this? I don't exactly understand what you mean by that? Do you mean that as you reach a stage where you have already been blessed with many of your previous tefillos bli ayin harah (ex. grow up to have a healthy, peaceful god fearing family) than the big focus and concern becomes interuption in that continuum of bracha jsut as the Potential energy of an object and its distance to the ground increase as it is raised further into the air? As opposed to a single girl or guy who davens for a future shidduch but has no concern for anything that he or she already has to get messed up? Marbe nechasim marbe deaaga?
DeleteThanks for writing. I do think that this is part of it. I also think that fear of loss grows and becomes more real as one ages, and it can overshadow the desire to set new goals and continue to build.
DeleteIt's also situational. In third world countries suffering from hunger and disease (I am not talking about war-torn countries specifically, just poorer ones), much younger people have to deal with these kinds of issues. And in cases in the US in which medical issues in the family come up, davening for something not to happen can occur at a much younger age. I speak not only from my own experience but from others' who have likewise had to wrestle with such problems. I am glad that for you and so many others, such issues are relegated to a much later stage in life.
ReplyDeleteJoseph-
DeleteThanks for writing. But in truth, especially when I was in the shul rabbinate, I have long had many things to daven "not to lose". What I am describing here is more the challenge of seeing past the "not to lose" items to develop new "to gain" items. That's what I think people have had a harder time doing with age.
Ah! I see. My apologies for misunderstanding. Thanks for clarifying.
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