Living in the OVERFLOW means saying YES! -- if four needs are met

Tulips: the promise that spring really will come; one day...

The other day, I was described by a friend as “a woman of a certain age with nothing to prove who wants to get sh*t done”.

I like this description, because it’s true: Last month, I reached official senior citizenship — no denying the ‘of a certain age’ stage. And it’s accurate: There is so much I want to be doing and time is roaring down the road ahead of me, it can be hard to keep up never mind stay on top of things.

For both these reasons, I say YES! to a variety of things these days, but each commitment must meet four criteria:

• CONNECTION: I want to spend my time with people who share my values and are engaged in meaningful work of some kind in some way to make our corner of the world a better place for all
• COMMUNITY: I treasure my solitude, but I revel in collective work that moves a vision forward
• CREATIVITY: Imagination combined with energy and delight in using our own selves to make something happen is a pretty good description of ‘creativity’, I think. Solo creativity is great, but collaborative creativity is a real rush.
• FUN: Fun is the fuel for the hard work required to get to where we want to be. I don’t mind hard work, but without fun (and laughter), the hard work is just a drag. And without fun involved, I’m unlikely to sign up for the hard work.

Beyond my ongoing personal writing priorities, my days are filled with several commitments that happily meet these four criteria needs:

I continue to say yes to The Valiant Theatre project. We have now raised about $40,000 towards the required $100,000, so there is still much more to do. We are hopeful that new connections made recently might kick up our fundraising efforts to the next level. Stay tuned.

The "From Page to Stage" project is an ongoing joy. Six of us have been writing and sharing our stories on the theme of transformation, and we have been meeting and planning together how to bring our words to life for a live audience — and we are getting there, inventing this new way of writers taking their work out into the world.

Seniors Writing Workshop: I have now completed my third term with this group of seniors who love to write, and I’m already looking forward to my fourth term in the fall. I lead the monthly nonfiction session, where the focus is on life writing of some kind. I provide three prompts to spark these writers who bring their work to read aloud to the group. Sometimes they use my prompts, and sometimes they ignore them completely. I love that. I always learn something from their stories.

Write for Fun: Once a week in March, I have been volunteering with a local community housing group to lead a session focused purely on the fun of writing. A small handful of residents joined me to write short stories that we then read aloud to each other. For me, this has been about being present in the moment without expectation of anything beyond the pleasure these writers take in putting words on the page.

I said yes to being interviewed on the OVERFLOW podcast, hosted by Kimberly Snider, who encourages us to live in a state of “overflow” where our days are full, we are able to savour them, and we don’t lose ourself along the way. A tall order, maybe, but a good state to aim for. She and I met during a webinar on ‘retirement as the next chapter’, we clicked, shared a few emails back and forth, and then, on her podcast, had a fun conversation about a few of the guiding principles I use in my life and my decision making — write things down; think about your life in 5-year chunks; a job title is not your identity; and more. I do love sharing my philosophy from behind a microphone! You can listen to the episode here. 

At my stage of life I am fortunate: My time is my own. Priorities are mine to set. Projects are mine to join. When guided by my four must-meet criteria (connection, community, creativity, fun), my own version of 'overflow' living is pretty damn satisfying. And it's a fine way to get some good sh*t done.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.