For all of the bravado of our younger years, being young is actually a time of a lot of insecurity. A beautiful part of aging, is having all of the experiences under our belts that we’ve lived through, and enjoyed, or at the very least, conquered. When an incident arises which needs our attention, it is so good to fall back on the self-assurance, “I’ve gotten through worse than this, and I’ve come out better and stronger on the other side. I will figure this out. I always have.”
Sometimes when I see quotes like this, I think to myself, “Yes. I know. I trust myself, and my strength, and my faith to see me through, but do you know what? I’m a little tired of figuring sh*t out.” It turns out that life is often a big, long series of figuring stuff out – even the good stuff, like where to eat and what movie to watch. But as you age and you’ve proven to yourself that you are pretty good at figuring stuff out, this self assurance sure helps lighten the load.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
+ My daughter has a summer internship at a local credit union. She came home with a stomach bug Monday night. She’s fine now, thankfully. In fact, she’s back to work today, but we were all kind of surprised by her illness. If there was any upside to this pandemic mess, it was that none of us, living and working at our house, came down with flus or colds or any other viruses for over a year. They say that paper money carries a lot of filth on it. I believe it. She’s only been working there a couple of weeks now.
+ I read an article that was talking about why it is so hard for many of us to figure out our purpose(s) in life. The article, taken from an excerpt from a book by Kristine Klussman, says that we get tripped up by three erroneous beliefs about “purpose.” The first mistake, is that we think that our purpose has to be grand and noble and all-reaching. The facts are, we don’t all have to be (nor are we going to be) Gandi, or Martin Luther King Jr., or Florence Nightingale. It’s all of the gazillions of parts that make a whole. Just being and doing our own little gazillionth, is enough and serves its purpose. Secondly, we have the false belief that we just have one singular purpose. Anyone of us, who is a parent, knows that this premise is false. My purpose in parenting has been to raise healthy, happy, productive members of society. My purpose in parenting has been to experience a love like I have never known. My purpose in parenting has been to continue and to carry on the good parts of my heritage, and to heal and to change the parts of my heritage that I found to be harmful. (Right there, I have listed three purposes in my life, and that’s just under the subset of “parenting”.) Finally, we think that our purposes have to be “forever.” Why? If the only constant is change, and we are all evolving in an ever-evolving world, does it not make sense that we will have different purposes in different stages of our lives? There is some real satisfaction in working through a project, or an experience, or a career, and being able to say, “My work is done here.” This feeling of completion allows us to open doors to other purposes in our lives, as we go on. Variety is the spice of life.
+ We all are so good at writing to-do lists. I read something this week that said to end your day with a “ta-da! list”, which lists everything that you got done, during the day. Even if it is just doing a load of laundry, and cleaning some dishes, you did these chores! You didn’t have to do anything. You could have just been a “bump on a log.” Ta Da! You got things done. What a great way to end your day on a positive note.
+ Finally, here’s a perspective changer. The universe is almost 13.8 billion years old. Any of us will be lucky to reach 100 years of age. We humans are not very old, and frankly, in the scheme of things, we are not all that important. I think that Anthony Hopkins gets it right, in the opening meme. Just live your life’s experience. That’s your own real purpose. Your life is fleeting. Your life is fragile. Your life is short. Ta Da! You’re here. Put this on your “to do” list today, in Sharpie and in all caps: 1. LIVE AND LOVE. And tonight, when you are going over your “ta da!” list, smile in peace and contentedness, that you did it. You LIVED AND you LOVED.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Okay, time for a dramatic moment. I consider this a victory for all of us Second Halfers! I’m officially a published writer today. The wonderful digital magazine The Fine Line published one of my previous blogposts today. You can find the link here:
https://thefinelinemag.com/
This is big for me. It is a dream that I think I always had, to be a published writer, but I let it go latent. This moment is a huge reminder to myself to not listen to that ugly, negative, snarling, fearful voice in my head telling me that I’m not good enough, nobody cares about my ideas, and to just sit back and shut up and keep doing the dishes. We all have that ugly voice raging at us and we need to silence him or her. Now. When our “ugly voice” is silenced we can hear the still, quiet, calm, peaceful, knowing voice that is inside all of us. That is the voice which is beckoning us to share our true selves with the world. When we do that, we are helping creation become what it is truly meant to be. And that is a gift to ourselves and to the world.
“One of the greatest feelings in life is the conviction that you have lived the life you wanted to live – with the rough and the smooth, the good and the bad – but yours, shaped by your own choices, and not someone else’s.” – Michael Ignatieff
Second Halfers, our time has come. We are ripened, wisened and brave. We know who we are now and it is time that we love and accept who we are and share our total creation of ourselves, fully and honestly, with life. We have championed our families, our careers, our mentors and our mentees, but it’s time to realize that it is good and right to champion ourselves as well. I am so grateful to you all for your support and feedback on this blog. Thank you for inspiring me to open up some latent dreams, and rallying me along the way.
” . . .sometimes, the fiercest thing you can do is to be unapologetic about who you are and what you want.” – Anonymous
