If you open yourself to the world, the world will open itself to you

It's a mindset thing

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

I asked the black-and-white photograph of my father that sits next to me on the windowsill what I should write about today. What I know about dating in midlife? I asked. I felt a ‘no’ from him. ‘Something fun,’ I felt his spirit say to me.

OK, I thought. How about this: If you open yourself to the world, the world will open itself to you. ‘Yes,’ his spirit said.

From getting pissed off with myself for self-sabotaging a few weeks back, I now feel a sense of life’s limitless possibilities, and I’m saying ‘yes’ to life. I say ‘yes’ to going swing dancing, even though I’ve only done it once before. I volunteer to set up a community party with strangers. I agree to play rounders with people I’ve never met even though team sports are scary to me.

Some of this feeling is a kind of freedom, something I think I have more of because I don’t have kids. I’m trying to make sense of this too - asking myself OK, so kids didn’t happen – now what?

And it’s weird, because now I’m in this frame of mind, one of hope, possibility and positivity, the ‘universe’ seems to sense it. Work has been coming my way. People I meet on dance floors introduce me to their single friends. I do small things that scare me and it pays off.

But the point is, I’m not putting myself out there because I want to get something back – I’m doing it for the sense of fun, from a place of curiosity, to see what it feels like, to experience the unknown and with a feeling of hope.

I wrote a few weeks ago about wanting to try new things ‘for the adventure of being alive’ and the more I think about it, the more I realise this is a mindset, rather than a to-do list.

I hope this doesn’t come across as smug. I guess in writing this down, I’m trying to make sense of my own mind. And I’m grateful to you for humouring me through this.

I’m aware that I write to you as if I’m a ‘somebody’ with legions of followers and fans who has something to say and people to listen. But the truth is, I’m a jobbing journalist with a newsletter where I explore - and celebrate - living life in a different way to the one I expected, in the hope it’s helpful to you, the people who read it.

So what am I saying to you today? I’m saying notice things. Marvel at them. Be in awe. Ask questions, see the humanity in people. Trust your instinct when it tells you to say ‘yes,’ or warns you to say ‘no’. Seek the beauty, and you’ll find it.

When I come out of my tube station, I see litter and cranes and construction, but I often look at the sky and the clouds and the sunset and the rain, and I’m astonished that nature has created it in that particular way, and that exact pattern in the sky will never have been seen before, or will be again.

The more open I feel, the more interested I become in art, in music, in nature, and the absolute wonder that a collection of plant cells can create something as sweet-smelling and extraordinary-looking as a hyacinth with its cluster of blooms on a sturdy stem, or as delicate as the flower that comes from low-growing leafy brunnera, its teeny purple petals reminiscent of a forget-me-not.

I didn’t want to write this today. I was tired, I had nothing to say. But I looked to the spirit of my father, and this is what came out. Thank you for being here!

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