I have a dream

I have a dream.

I am working with this woman who is in her 60s in my coaching. She is healthy, active, and as mentally acute as my peers. It is likely she has another 20, 30, 40 years in her life. Seeing her closely makes me think about how I would be in my 60s. Those “elderly” years are the most unstructured cycle of adult life. We tend not to think much about those years. We may vaguely believe that “retirement” would unlock this mysterious happiness that we have yearned and worked so hard for. We may wish that all challenges we face today are resolved by then because we would have saved more money, raised our children, and “retired.” I think not.

One of the biggest challenges of our modern life is loneliness. It does not matter if you are a young adult in 20s or in elderly years in your 70s. It pervades everyone, and everywhere. It is quiet and parasitic. This is not just for those unmarried, divorced, widowed, or empty nested. Even those married with kids, one still feels lonely; the difference is that they may not have capacity to sense into this deep loneliness in the weight of daily shackles and duties to perform as a parent.

I feel lonely too. I meditate on loneliness. I bury myself with work at times to avoid this feeling. I rationalize to make it more beautiful by calling it solitude. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate solitude. Yet, I know my deep truth — I want to feel connected, belong, and loved. So I travel around the world to be with friends whose presence makes me feel seen and understood. We laugh. We play. We dance. We talk. We listen. We are simply being human "beings" -- not human "doings" or human "capital" -- in that space.

My dream is to live in a space where we can be free human beings for many moments of our awaken hours. I live with my close friends, maybe in nature or maybe in the city. Maybe in both places! We all have our private space and common areas. Over the years, each of us learns a skill such as how to brew tea for our tea time together, how to grow vegetables in our garden, and how to cook seasonal meals with the vegetables grown in our garden. Learning keeps us young. Laughter keeps us younger. With what we learned, we contribute to the tiny community that we create.

Maybe some of us will have kids. Maybe some of us will invite our elderly parents to live with us. All are welcome. Those kids will have many aunties and uncles that they can play with, learn from and be loved by when their parents are busy taking care of their lives. Those elderly parents will have many adult children around to keep them company. They impart any life stories or wisdom that they want to share before their final breath is near. We know that we will be one of them in the blink of eyes.

This is my dream. We grow old near each other united with love, friendship, and conscious maturity. We treat each other with compassion and kindness as the river of life is flowing through us in this journey that we call life.

- Sunday morning, inspired by this video where 7 girlfriends build a house to live together. Because they are living my dream now.