Deadlines and the three Rs

EDITORIAL Deadlines and the Three Rs Call them time goals, due dates, deadlines, or what you will, specific hours on clocks and days on calendars rule us from adolescence through our working lives. The rhythm of our deadlines may be as staccato as a metronome's beat if we are workaholics, as legato as the tide's ebb and flow if we're beachcombers. But artificial deadlines organize our lives as surely as the biological rhythms of sleeping and waking. The student must submit four term papers before semester break. The social worker must find placement for hospitalized Medicaid patients before their planned discharge date. The ICU nurse must regulate infusions to deliver precisely X milliliters of blood within an exact time span. The woman who has had a stroke must exercise her affected muscles or lose them to atrophy. And so on and on. Myriad examples spring to mind that prove we're a nation of clock and calendar watchers from the cradle to---retirement. Then abruptly the rhythm snaps. " F r e e a t last!" the released person exclaims. " N o more having to do anything by a certain time. What a heavenly relief." Well, maybe, for a short while. But unless death, the natural endpoint, is to be the sole target date of maturity, some organizing rhythm must evolve. A gentler rhythm c a n emerge. Within the global theme of life review--the coming to terms with past failures and successes, and the contemplation of death with equani m i t y-three sustaining themes are interwoven. They involve the tasks of advanced age, the three Rs for short: accepting Realityjulfilling Responsibil!ty, exercising Rights. Realities Facing these requires acknowledging one's state of heMth and financial situation, recognition that energy levels may fluctuate more often than in the past, and acting on the fact that one's remaining time may be short but is more likely to be at least another 20 years. Candid appraisal of those realities will disclose the responsibilities they entail and lead to setting some feasible dates for fulfilling them. Responsibilities The chore-type tasks might come first. Say three months to update one's will, organize records that survivors m ay need, and plan the funeral. The pleasurable responsibility to use old abilities and cultivate different interests merits early consideration. W hy not set dates for enrolling in a class to learn something brand new? For adopting a pet or writing long-neglected friends7 Why not have breakfast in bed every Sunday and read the whole newspaper? How about occasional but regular baby sitting for the grandchildren or scheduling a whole day every few weeks to do absolutely nothing? Rights Along with these cyclical tasks is the exercise of the right to accomplish them at one's own pace, the right to privacy, the right to respectful consideration of one's needs and ideas, the right to refuse, the right to be informed and to participate in plans and decisions. Played out together, the facing of reality, the fulfillment of responsibility, and the exercise of rights can maintain involvement with living. And involvement is what rhythm, deadlines, and life are all about. How do the young enter this picture, especially those of us in the helping professions? All along the way, we can encourage our elders to plan for an active but unpressured retirement. We can expect them to maintain comfortable deadlines during retirement. And we can do with or for them what they are unable to do for themselves.