Old age, I’ve learned, is a time for shutting up, dropping the shock and self-pity, and getting on with life. Make no doubt about it, old age almost invariably meant ending one life and deciding if or how I wish to build another.

The days in which I was edged off the upper shelf of my life practically froze my soul. I couldn’t help but be hurt, angry, and frightened.

My publisher was frank in discharging me after 50 years and many books together – five best sellers. Too old now, they said; we are hiring young women. Good business, I thought; it was about time, but ouch.

The interviews stopped, the talks ended with the big checks. My daughter was out of school, leading an impressive life elsewhere. My wonderful and important years as a father were over. I was the one in the family who shopped and drove her to school. She had moved on, a good distance away. What now? We had done our work – we were not needed much anymore.

Work, which centered and focused my life, was suddenly gone. It wasn’t just that I was getting old; it felt more mile like a bomb had landed in my life, and the major purposes of my somewhat thoughtless life were blown to bits. I couldn’t imagine rebuilding it. I didn’t know what to do.

My unhappiness with my life ended a 35-year marriage, and I had no idea what my role or work might be other than to accept an empty life and die quietly. My love was loveless and alone. A loyal and industrious border collie was my best friend.

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I did not have a faith to fall back on or a minister to assure me that a new life was waiting for me. I was on my own. I couldn’t see a meaningful way out. Old age, says Joan Chittister, is a time for letting go of the spirit outrage and fear that come with having walked through the shadows of life, and choosing how to live it.

I was beyond the pain and narcissism of youth, the ambitions and struggles of young adulthood, the challenges of middle life.

I remember sitting in Contemplation, subconsciously thinking about the heartbeats of life. I wanted it back. What were they for me? Slowly and cautiously, I realized that my spirits were not gone, but suddenly on the move. A door had closed, a door had opened. I could see the light.

Old age, I slowly came to realize, was a new kind of freedom. There was nothing to stop me now, no one to tell me what to do,  how to live, how to vote, how to think. If I made a mistake, it was on me.

Old age, I read, was the time to be dangerously alive, free to try new things – finding love, taking pictures, starting blogs, writing freely, trying to do some good. To my surprise, all these things were lying at my feet, waiting for me to find them. There was no one to do it for me.

This was not a time to whine, complain, or quiver about aging. Yes, I was afraid of dying, as was everyone in the world, but the problem was I had been afraid of living, slaves all of life to the CEO’s and bosses and snobs of the cultural and modern world.

If I thought life was ending, why should anyone in the world pay attention to me?

Shut up, I heard a voice say in meditation. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, get on with living; there is lots of time.

Sitting up on a hill one day on my new farm with sheep and my border collie Rose, I had this epiphany. I had to allow myself to breathe again; the hysterical, greedy, intense, and loud life around me was shocking me to death.

For the first time in my life, I was a slave to no one. I could do anything I wanted, live anywhere I wanted, be anything I wanted.

This wasn’t the right time for the dread “old talk” – at my age, we are all getting older, etc. – getting older was not the curse of life for the damned. It was about getting the chance for a new life. I was blowing it. In my meditation, I remember thinking, “Hey Jon, you’re getting old and will die. But you don’t have to kill yourself first.”

The danger of these years is assuming that the future is over, when the truth is that another future has begun.

Tomorrow is not for dying; it’s for living, every single day to the best of my ability, with acceptance and pride. I’m pretty good at living when I put my mind to it. It felt like, in those first days, I was stumbling through life.

Another way to look at it is that it is old people like me who are the true signs of what life has been and might yet be.

In my Contemplation sessions (I’m having one tomorrow), I thought every day of life was sacred. I decided never to need reminding of the gift of life again.

“Rose,” I said, turning her head to me. “The only asshole in my life is me now.” She looked at me, wagged her tail, and ran back to boss the sheep. She seemed to have heard it all, and was not moved.

I remember this caution that the rabbis in the Kabalah said. “To save one life is to save the whole world.”

To save mine is to live life well.