What changes when you stop assuming there will always be another year?
By Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist
I turned 75 on August 17. Since then, I have found myself thinking about time differently. Not obsessively. Not morbidly. Just differently. Here is the thought that keeps coming back: What if this is my last year in the form?
Not an unreasonable assumption. I am 75. I feel good. I am working, writing, thinking, loving, planning and still finding new things to get excited about. I certainly have no intention of going anywhere soon. But my intentions don’t control the matter. At 25, you can reasonably behave as if there is an enormous stretch of road ahead. At 50, you probably still expect a few decades. At 75, the arithmetic changes. I could have another 20 years. Maybe more. I could also have considerably less. Today could be my last day! That isn’t pessimism. That’s reality. And strangely enough, I don’t find the thought depressing. I find it clarifying.
What If I Am Right?
Suppose this really is my last year. Not my last year of productivity. Not my last year of working. My last year in this form. What would I do differently? I suspect the first thing I would do is stop wasting so much time on foolishness. At 75, I am increasingly aware of how much of our lives can disappear into things that don’t really matter. Arguments we cannot remember six months later. People we are trying to impress who aren’t thinking about us. Obligations we accepted years ago and never thought to question. Worrying about what somebody might say. If I have only twelve months, some of that has to go. There are simply too many better uses for Tuesday afternoon.
So What Really Matters to Me?
This question is harder than it looks. We spend much of life being told what should matter: achievement, status, possessions, recognition, career, money, being seen as successful. Some of those things do matter. Money certainly matters. Try telling JPS otherwise. But at 75, the hierarchy has shifted.
Peace matters more to me now. Health matters. Mobility matters enormously. Being able to get up, walk where I want to walk, travel, drive, climb stairs, take care of myself – these are no longer little things. Love matters. Intimacy matters. Good conversation matters. So does laughter. Curiosity still matters a great deal to me. I want to wake up wanting to know something I didn’t know yesterday. And my work matters, although perhaps not in quite the same way it did 30 years ago. I am no longer building a résumé. At this point, I am much more interested in whether anything I have learned can be useful to somebody after I leave. That may be what legacy really is. Not monuments. Not your name on a building. Something you said, taught, wrote or demonstrated that continues to work after you no longer do.
How Do I Want to Spend My Time?
This may be the central question. We talk about time as though it were money. It isn’t. Lose some money and, with luck, you can make it again. Lose Thursday and Thursday is gone. At 75, I don’t know how many Thursdays I have left. Neither does anybody else, of course. The 35-year-old doesn’t know either. But at 75 it becomes harder to maintain the illusion. So I have started thinking more carefully about where my hours go. (None available for sitting in traffic)
Do I really want to spend two hours in an argument that neither of us will remember next month? Do I want to give an entire afternoon to somebody whose company consistently drains me? Do I want to attend another meeting simply because somebody thinks I ought to be there? Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes obligations are real. We cannot turn life into a permanent vacation from responsibility. But increasingly I want my days to contain more of what actually makes being alive worthwhile.
I want unhurried mornings. Time in nature. Music. Writing. Thinking. Conversations that wander into unexpected places. Meals with people I like. Touch. Laughter. And sometimes I want to sit down and do absolutely nothing. I used to think doing nothing meant wasting time. I’m no longer so sure. If I am sitting somewhere I love, perhaps on an empty beach, or in the hills with a breeze moving through the trees, and I am completely content to be there, what exactly am I wasting?
Who Gets My Time?
Now we reach the dangerous question. If you knew you had twelve months left, would everybody currently occupying space in your life still have a seat? Probably not. One of the privileges I am claiming at 75 is the right to delete and edit. Some relationships survive because they are alive. Others survive because they are old. Those are not the same thing. There are people we continue seeing out of habit, history, guilt or obligation. Sometimes neither person is particularly enjoying the relationship anymore, but nobody wants to be the one to admit it.
If my time really is limited, I want more of it with people around whom I can relax. People who make me laugh. People who stimulate my mind. People I love touching and who enjoy touching me. People with whom I can talk for three hours – or sit quietly without feeling somebody has to fill the silence. There are also people I simply want to see again. That has become important.
At 75, “one more time” has a different meaning. One more meal. One more conversation. One more hug. One more opportunity to say, “You know, I’m glad you were part of my life.” We are remarkably good at saying beautiful things about people when they are lying in a coffin. Perhaps we should practise saying some of those things over lunch.
What Do I Still Want to Do?
Quite a lot, actually. That surprised me. Seventy-five has not removed ambition. It has changed the flavour of it. There are things I still want to write. Ideas I want to develop. People I want to teach. Conversations I want to provoke. Questions I want to explore. There are experiences I still want to have simply because I think they would be fun. But there is another list that may be equally important.
Things I no longer want to do.
That list gets longer. I am increasingly suspicious of sentences beginning with, “At your age, you should…” Should what? And according to whom? Ageing, if you are fortunate, may bring a wonderful discovery: many of the rules you spent decades obeying were never really rules. Some were customs. Some were other people’s expectations. Some were fear dressed up as good sense. And some were simply nonsense. If this is my last year, I don’t intend to spend too much of it obeying nonsense.
Where Do I Want to Go?
Yes, there are still a few places I want to see. There are places I have never visited and others I would happily return to. But I notice something has changed. I no longer feel any great need to collect destinations. There was a time when travel itself carried a certain status. You had been there. You had seen that. You came home with photographs and stories. These days, where I go matters less than why I am going, and who is going with me.
Sometimes the place I most want to be is home. That may sound unambitious, but I don’t think it is. There is something deeply satisfying about reaching the stage where home is not simply where you recover before going back into the world. Home can become one of the places where your life actually happens. The centre of my universe. Still, there are a few journeys left. I intend to make some of them.
What Remains Unsaid?
This one requires some courage. If I died tomorrow, would the people I love know that I loved them? I think so. But thinking so may not be enough. Are there people I need to thank? Someone I should call? An apology that has been sitting around too long? A piece of gratitude I have felt but never actually expressed? Perhaps.
There are also relationships that do not need repairing. I think we sometimes romanticise reconciliation. Not every broken relationship should be restored. Some doors were closed for good reason. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean renewed access. But unfinished emotional business can become heavy luggage. If I am travelling light into whatever comes next, I would prefer not to carry too much of it.
And Yes, I Want to Enjoy Myself
Sometimes conversations about ageing become terribly serious. Purpose. Legacy. Mortality. Meaning. All important. But if this turns out to be my last year, I also intend to have some damn fun. Some serious fun. I want good food. Good music. Good company. Sensuality. Laughter. Pleasure. New experiences and some old favourites. I also want moments that accomplish absolutely nothing. Not everything has to be productive. At this age, pleasure does not need to submit a proposal explaining its expected return on investment. Sometimes joy is the return.
But What If I Am Wrong?
This is the part I like most. Suppose I spend the next twelve months living as though this were my final year. I spend more time with people I love. I take better care of my body. I protect my peace. I travel somewhere I have been postponing. I write the things I want to write. I say no more often. I say yes more carefully. I tell people what they mean to me while they are still around to hear it. I laugh more. I love more. I waste less time. Then August 2027 arrives. I wake up. Still here. What have I lost? Nothing that I can see. I would simply have had a very good year and would gladly sign up for ‘one more year pon dem’. And perhaps that is the point.
The Last-Year Test
I think I may adopt a new test for the Anchor Leg of my life. Whenever something demands a significant amount of my time, energy or emotional space, I can ask myself: If this were my last year in the form, would I still choose this? The answer won’t always be simple. There will still be responsibilities. People who depend on us. Things we must do whether they bring joy or not. Living as though time is limited should not become an excuse for selfishness or recklessness. But the question may help separate obligation from habit, importance from noise, and living from merely continuing. At 75, I don’t know whether I have one day, one year, ten years or twenty-five. I hope it is twenty-five. But hope is not a schedule, nor is it a strategy. What I do know is that I don’t want to reach the end – whenever it comes – and discover that I kept postponing my life because I assumed there would always be more time.
So perhaps this is my last year in the form. I intend to live accordingly. And if August 2027 finds me still here – still walking, thinking, loving, laughing, writing and causing a little trouble – I will be delighted. I will give thanks for the extension. Then I may simply begin my last year all over again.
The Best Is Yet to Come.
Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Transformational Psychologist
The Semaj MindSpa