The most elusive challenge of midlife is not to cope with the past or the future, but with the emptiness of the present, the sense that satisfaction is deferred or left be-hind, that one's relentless striving is self-destructive. Our final chapter traced this malady to a structural flaw in the pursuit of projects. Projects are telic: they aim at terminal states. To engage with them successfully is to complete them and so to eliminate meaning from your life.
The solution framed in chapter 6 is to invest more fully in atelic activities, ones that have no point of termination or exhaustion-activities like going for a walk, spending time with friends, appreciating art or nature, parenting, or working hard. There may not be a change in what you do from day to day. It is enough to adjust your attitude, what you love: to value not just projects but the process of raising kids, maintaining friendships, doing your job. From the outside, things might look the same; but they are profoundly different. If you value the process, you have what you want right now; and your engagement does not drain its worth.
When you cook dinner for your kids, help them finish their homework, and put them to bed-telic activities through and through-you engage in the atelic activity of parenting. Unlike dinner and homework, parenting is complete at every instant; it is a process, not a project.
To live mindfully is to perceive the value of atelic activities, a value that is not exhausted by engagement or deferred to the future, but realized here and now.
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