Dr. Ellen Langer

So what people don't understand that things either happen once in a while, so who cares?

Or they happen all the time where you can adjust to it.

So if my hair curled, all I had to realize was the people who see me every day know typically my hair isn't that curly.

And if you see somebody just once, who cares?

That's why I did it.

Exactly.

And then the second, right.

That people who just have, let's say, a heart attack and live through it.

Or when you're given a diagnosis for one of these dread diseases.

I said to you before that people are sealed in unlived lives.

Sometimes that diagnosis breaks the seal.

And all of a sudden, oh my God, I'm not going to live forever.

I'm not going to be bothered by the trivia that has typically consumed me.

Right.

And now you have a chance to be who you want to be now, not to be who you thought you should be 20 years ago.

But empty nest is the same experience, postpartum blues, empty nest.

It's all the same, which is you become totally engaged in something, and then it's finished, and now, oh, my God, you feel lost.

And people don't realize transitions, by their very nature, are difficult.

Transitions mean you're not where you were, you're not where you're going to be.

And so you allow yourself, you know, when you're with the kids, you're not with all your friends.