Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.
We’d all like to believe that we will live well into our 90s, or at least our 80s. But it’s not possible for all of us to live that long. None of us think WE will be the ones to get cancer early or die from other causes. But we will. A significant percentage of people reading this will not be here in 5 years.
That includes you, and that includes me as well. We don’t like to think about that fact. But there may be positive, life-affirming reasons to take very seriously our mortality, and its unpredictable nature. For one thing, when we really accept that time may be short, we forgive others more quickly and we keep our priorities straight. But accepting our situation regarding death confers us many such advantages.
Persistence. Resilience. What is it that makes some people persist in the face of great difficulties, when others simply give up? What makes some people highly resilient, refusing to give up even after many difficult experiences?
Therapy, the Human mind, and life in general are 
Most of us complain about “stress,” but we have a superficial understanding of its sources. Like any complex psychological experience, stress has many sources and causes. One of these is that we are not skilled at being idle, doing nothing. It is as if we have lost our “neutral” gear and have to be moving and doing at all times.
In prior blog entries, I discussed ways that 
Why do depression and despair paralyze us? Okay, not “why,” as in, “can I have YET ANOTHER more or less useless scientific explanation of clinical depression?” But rather, what is it about depression in the moment, in this very moment, experientially, that makes it so much better to do nothing, than to do something? And, how can I recognize when my despair is an illusion, versus when it is justified by the facts of my life? And what is to be done about the inaction resulting from despair? Like the subject of the classic drawing “Melancholia” featured here, we are surrounded by wonder and yet often choose to do nothing, wallowing in despair.
