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“If who you are is what you do, then when you don’t, you aren’t.”

 I’ve failed at finding the author of this quote. For years I believed it was the late Wayne Dyer, but short of rereading all of his books, I have not been able to substantiate that.

Regardless, it’s a great quote. It reminds us to be real people with interests outside of a career. Or outside of a role we have assigned to ourselves.

We’ve all heard the stories of men and women retiring from jobs, then not doing much of anything else and dying early. Maybe it’s from boredom.

But it’s not just work that some of us get ourselves wrapped up in so tightly that we don’t have room for anything else. A friend of a friend had several children; she had devoted her every waking moment to being the perfect mom. When the last child left for college, she sank into a depression that took her a while to recover from. The kids were gone, so who she had been for all those years had changed significantly.

Some couples see themselves as couples above all else. Don’t get me wrong; I love being married. But when being someone’s better half is someone’s sole purpose in life, then when the other person is no longer around, it’s as though they can’t function. Like me, you may have personal knowledge of cases like this when one spouse dies and the other follows soon after.

I have always loved the old movie Auntie Mame. According to the original trailer, Mame is “an eccentric heiress who raises her young nephew to become a free spirit.”

Actress Rosalind Russell had many great quotes in the film. Here’s my favorite:

“Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.”

Follow the link to the original movie trailer and you’ll get to hear her say it!  http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/175253/Auntie-Mame-Original-Trailer-.html

The point is, we don’t enjoy music by listening to one single note. We don’t visit a museum that displays paintings of only yellow flowers. We don’t go out to dinner and eat just olives.

So we ought not to be just what we do.

Life is indeed a banquet. Enjoy it all.