Do you feel as though you are always in a rush? “The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get” is a common experience—even here in San Miguel. Time pressure is not inevitable and does not come from nowhere. It can come from your self-image: thinking of yourself as someone who can or ought to be able to accomplish certain things, regardless of your actual age or ability. Many try to pretend that they are younger than they are. They expect themselves to be able to walk, exercise, eat, drink, or make love in the rhythm of a younger person. Perhaps they never treated their body well. Eventually, as the philosopher Martin Buber warned, “the body bites back.” When I began to visit San Miguel in the year 2000 I was surprised to observe the amount of time pressure under which many expatriates were living, even retired people. For some reason, some people feel obligated to fulfill an impossible number of social demands.
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