A Japanese recipe for accepting the passage of time

The best of life is going downhill. The title of the first chapter of the book The Courage to Age: How Philosophy Can Help You Accept the Effects of Time is, of course, a provocation. Its author, the philosopher and psychologist Ichiro Kishimi, questions why people lament aging and says that in therapy sessions, he often asks patients: "Would you like to go back to how you were at 18?". Most respond that in no way. "They don't think that being young is enough to be happy. In other words, youth is not necessarily superior to old age," he states. Kishimi is a follower of Alfred Adler, the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist contemporary of Sigmund Freud who followed an independent path. One of the central concepts of his work is the motivating force that leads the individual to seek growth and overcome obstacles. The philosopher and psychologist Ichiro Kishimi, author of The Courage to Age: How Philosophy Can Help You Accept the Effects of Time - Photo: Disclosure "The important thing is not to compare with others to know if you are above or below them, but to take a step forward to transform your own reality and evolve. We need to abandon the logic of productivity and stop judging others and ourselves by what we produce. This is the work environment, a space of competition in which we are permanently evaluated. As we age, we must distance ourselves from this system of values," he writes. In his assessment, there are three requirements to become a true adult: - To be able to recognize one's own worth, regardless of the opinions of others; - To make decisions and take responsibility for one's own choices; - To avoid egocentrism: "Just as we do not live to satisfy the expectations and demands of others, no one lives to satisfy our own expectations and demands," he details. At 50 years old, the writer suffered a heart attack and, a year later, underwent surgery to place a saphenous vein graft. "Suffering seriously is difficult. Much worse than the pains, difficulties, and discomforts caused by the illness is not knowing that we will be alive tomorrow," he recounts in the book. And he shares his feeling of anguish: "After the fear of death, I began to feel despair: if I cannot do anything, perhaps my life has no value. But one day, I reflected: what if the person in the hospital was a relative or a close friend? I would be grateful that they were alive, so I realized that the same applied to me. The fact of being alive was a reason for joy for others, which made me regain calm. Illness can be a turning point," he teaches. Subsequently, Kishimi took on the role of his father's caregiver, and the work dedicates a lot of space to this experience. I have selected some inspiring excerpts: - Care without imposition: "Children should not impose their beliefs and ideas, nor interfere when they are not asked for an opinion. They should only make practical decisions that seek the best for their parents without creating unwanted rules." - Parents with dementia: "When my father told me that he was trying but couldn't remember what he had forgotten, I felt it was a lesson for me. Even if they remain trapped in the past, it is up to us to take the first step and focus our attention on the here and now." - Daily restart: "If we can relate to our parents as if it were always the first meeting, we will listen better to what they have to say and treat them with more respect." Finally, he gives us two other lessons: the importance of recognizing when one cannot cope with everything and the courage to admit when one does not know something: "Aging does not automatically transform anyone into an admirable or respectable person. Often young people stop listening to the older ones because they speak as if they know everything and are great sages. Phrases like 'you don't understand this yet' or 'you will only understand when you age' create distance."