This is the tension I deal with in my life. It’s not advice, just thoughts. That is; the tension between making decisions about the “structure” of my life and actually “living” my life.
I think about what’s in my life that’s not going away. I call this the “structure” of my life. This structure accompanies me in whatever I do and wherever I go - i.e. family, job, house, past, finances, sexuality, religious and philosophical constructs, etc… It’s true, the older I get, the more I have. And, we all have it. I love the structural part. I’ve been building it for decades, one brick at a time. The day I finish the structure is the day I die and go to heaven.
Now I love to break away from the structure and in those moments of freedom I feel great. But I know I must return. And ultimately, if the structure of my life doesn’t allow me to break away on occasion, I know I will be torn and unhappy. The same is true; if my life decisions don’t fit into the structure of my life, I know I’ll also be unhappy. When I make decisions regarding my life “plan”, those decisions must fit into the structural part of my life and the older I get, the more difficult that is to accomplish.
I’m not sure how to put this into words, I rarely plan the “living” of my life or the “unstructural” times of my life. If I plan the living part, usually by the time the plan unfolds it’s hollow and inauthentic. The living part of life is in the now. It’s the emotional part. I grab ahold of it in the now and enjoy it when I can.
Oddly enough, structure and living are like opposing magnets. They really are enemies of each other, but we need them both and we need them in balance. That is the bigger picture. A trip to Vegas or to the Grand Canyon is an unstructured moment and it feels wonderful and free and fantastic, but it cannot be sustained without agreeing or complying or working within or adding to the structure of our lives.
Structure without the living is dead. And living without the structure is chaos and/or constant randomness. It’s in the living that I have life. It’s in the structure that I am able to sustain myself and have continuity. I believe the structure of my life is there to make the living possible. Hopefully, the structure I’ve built gives me room to be sexual, to be loved, to be happy, to be spontaneous, and to have freedom, because I/we need that.
I often step back and look at the big picture of my life and answer for myself what it is I am really looking for. What is my ideal situation? What would make my life complete? I am turning older. I have a lot of life experience to draw on; that history can inform and teach me but it can also limit me by causing me to think that greater things are not possible. Or sometimes I repeat my past because it’s familiar. Whatever, answers to the big picture questions must be in line with the structure of my life and they must leave room for me to live my life. The big picture must embrace the tension of “structural living.”
So this is the struggle, the tension I live with day to day. Maintaining the structure of my life and actually living my life — and not letting either one compromise or sabotage the other.
