Tag: experience

Bombastic Birthday

Happy Birthday to me! I read this quote the other day:

I am 53 years old today. I am level 53. I have passed the 53 mile marker and I am zooming into my 54th year. I think the quote above is true to a point. Life can be truly humbling. I sometimes wish that I had some of that naive audacious panache that I had when I was younger – that young woman who marched right in, and worried about the details later, before many times being humbled by having my ass handed to me on a platter. But honestly, I don’t believe in living life with regrets. Throughout my lifetime, I have wasted time, I have wasted energy, I have wasted my breath on many, many things that do not matter. But I have lived enthusiastically and hopefully. I have loved deeply and fully. And truthfully, I’m still pretty damn loud.

I am a big believer in the onion/rose principle, that says that you can use each day of your life to unfold, until one day you end up at the deepest core of your true essence. If you shame yourself with regrets, you stop unfolding. You stay as a tightly wound, stony ball or a rigid, stubborn bud, holding desperately to layers that are fervently asking to be let go.

When I read the quote above, I thought to myself, this is why many people are afraid of self awareness. This is why so many people are unlikely to explore their own patterns and beliefs, and how these things affect their lives. Many people’s deepest fear is shame and recrimination. They fear the realization and disappointment that they haven’t been true to themselves for a long, long time. But this is a waste! What if all my life I was walking around with blinders at a banquet? The only thing I could see was the bland mush in my plate in front of me, because the blinders blocked everything else. Let’s say for 53 years, I wore the blinders until I started getting the sneaking suspicion that I could remove my own blinders. If I am brave enough to remove my blinders, I realize that there is an enormous banquet of delicious variety and beauty for me to explore and to experience beyond the bland mush. Now at this moment, do I sit and wail about the 53 years in which I thought that I could only have mush? Do I hate myself for keeping my blinders on for as long as I did? Or do I dive right in and excitedly explore the delights of the banquet that I have opened myself up to for my own exploration and exhilaration?? Some people are so afraid of realizing what they may have missed out on, that they stubbornly hold tight to their blinders and settle for the same old mush.

People are living longer than ever. At the risk of sounding crass, more than a few notable famous figures have passed lately who I was shocked to find out that they were still alive. Many people are living healthy, purposeful lives well into their nineties, and even past a century. It is never too late to take off the blinders. It is never too late to keep unpeeling the layers. What if you have only got one day, or maybe even one more minute to experience “the banquet”? Is that not better than never, ever experiencing it at all??

So, this I say: the older you get, you can get more loud if you want. Life is humbling, so be humbled, but use it as a wake up call to unabashedly Live and Love, Loud and Proud. Take your blinders off and don’t waste your precious time on any more nonsense.

I love you. Thank you for being here with me. It has made my birthday even more special. <3

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Tool Time

I saw this meme as I was scrolling on Twitter this morning, and I was amused at how the creator got what he or she thought to be a hilarious meme, “sort of” wrong. Ryobi tools and Milwaukee tools are owned by the same company. Ryobi is just the less expensive brand of the same tool maker. Let me put it in fashion terms: Ralph Lauren is the luxury brand, and Polo is its more affordable line. Versace is the luxury brand, and Versus is its more affordable line. Milwaukee is the luxury brand, and Ryobi is the more affordable line.

Now you may have never taken me to be a tool aficionado, and with this assumption, you are correct. Beyond a hammer and a screwdriver, I’m pretty hopeless when it comes to tools. I only know about Milwaukee and Ryobi because my youngest son had an internship with their parent company last summer. Last summer, I learned more about tools than I ever wanted to know. (on an aside, the Milwaukee “Sharpie type” pens are the best, most long lasting, I have ever used. The next time that you are in Home Depot purchasing potting soil, slide over to the Milwaukee section and buy a pen. You won’t regret it.)

Experiencing this other person’s gaffe this morning, reminded me of why knowledge is so important. We often make assumptions and jump to conclusions, without understanding the full picture. As we age, and with a lot of experiences already under our belts, we often forget to ask the who/what/where/when/why/how questions that were pounded into us, by our English teachers when we were kids. We project what we think that we “already know” on to our experiences, and we forget that we are still susceptible to mistakes and misjudgments. It’s so easy to end up with egg on your face when you are poking fun at an experience that you don’t have full knowledge about. The safest thing ever to poke fun at, is yourself. No one knows you like you do, and even with your own self, you still have some knowledge to learn. Today get curious. Ask yourself a who/what/where/when/how/why inquiry about yourself. You might be surprised to learn that you are more multifaceted than you realized. And if you see something that seems a little “off” to you (like the Ryobi guy using a Milwaukee tool), don’t be afraid to investigate. Ask questions. Try to come to understanding versus presumption.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

You’ve Got This

Credit: Wise Connector, Twitter

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.

SJP and Next Chapters

“How best to feel like yourself is the thing I’ve probably spent more time thinking about than I have beauty or aging, because there’s just simply not a lot I can do about it. I could do more, but I guess I don’t want to.”

“You want to be the person with the most experience who is a leader or relied upon as a professional, as a friend, as a wife, as a partner. That only comes with time spent living. So why are we not valuing that, instead of being focused on the fact that time spent living also produces wrinkles?” – Sarah Jessica Parker

I love these quotes from Sarah Jessica Parker from a recent magazine interview. Sarah Jessica Parker was angered not long ago, by many people calling her “brave” for being photographed with graying hair and no make-up. She insisted that there are a lot more brave things that people are doing in this world besides just allowing the natural, physical process of aging to happen. I like SJP’s idea of valuing the experience and the wisdom that can only come from aging. I also like the idea of focusing on “how best to feel like yourself“. If we don’t figure this out now, as we are getting older, than when will we ever figure it out? The time is now.

In other news, my husband and I were at a neighborhood fair last night and my husband pointed out these signs to me, shown below. (He knows me well.) Some people will read this sign as saying that the “The Author” is themself, some people will read this as saying “The Author” is God/Universe/Spirit, and some people will read “The Author” as being both themselves and God, and do you know what? Everyone is right.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Collector of Experiences

“Shlemiel!  Schlimazel!  Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!” – Laverne and Shirley

A few weeks ago, my husband and I started chanting this theme song in unison to our eldest son who had a business trip in Milwaukee.  He seemed puzzled and probably figured that his parents had finally lost it all of the way.  RIP – Penny Marshall.  I’m sad that my kids didn’t enjoy the magic of “Laverne and Shirley.”  So good!

Yesterday, my middle son and three of his friends got up in the wee hours of the morning to check out the Space X launch.  Unfortunately, all four launches ended up being postponed.  They decided not to risk it again today, but it sounds like they had a fun “road trip with the boys.”  Recently, my middle son told me that he has become a “collector of experiences.” I like that.  I think that experience is probably the best thing that you can collect in life.  You get some pretty special by-products by collecting experiences, such as learning and wisdom, empathy and a bigger view of Life.

“Our headspace dictates our perspective . . . our perspective dictates our experience . . . our experience is nothing short of life itself.” – as seen on Twitter

 

Inner Internet

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t. – Erica Jong

I have often repeated this quote to my family.  What happens when you spout quotes to the people you love, is that they often spout them back to you.  This one was recently boomeranged back to me via my husband.  At least I know that my family members are listening to me, I suppose.

I tend to get obsessive when I want a definitive answer to something that is bothering me.  I look up every website that might even just have a word that will help me with a problem or an issue.  It’s embarrassing to see even Google reminding me that I had just been at that same website two minutes ago or “you have visited this website many times.”  Why is it that I know that nothing will be different on the website that I just visited 2 minutes prior and many times before that, but I’m still hoping for a different glean of knowledge?

I believe that we are designed by the Divine to have the answers within us.  I’m a believer in prayer, but the older I get the more I realize that there is often a better plan for me and my situations than my limited vision sees.  My prayer is more and more often, “Help me to know that the answers are already within.  Help me go with the flow, knowing that everything is in accordance to Divine plan and help me to trust that knowledge.”

I watched a speaker recently who said that if we pray for patience, often we are going to get a long line at a bank.  Experience is our teacher.  God isn’t going to always swoop in and make things easy for us.  We parents know how hard it is to watch our children struggle to learn to walk, and then to read, and then to drive and then to drive off towards lives of their own.  We want to make it all easy for them, but we know it’s not for their best, so we sit on our hands, send our outpouring of love to them and know, in faith, that they are going to be okay.  We know that they have all of the tools to handle life, right inside of them, if they get quiet enough to listen to their own inner wisdom.

I think that we must have a built-in internet, full of knowledge and understanding right at the click of our hearts.  The good thing is that this “inner internet” doesn’t send us embarrassing reminders that we have been at this fork in the road 82 times already.  Our inner wisdom has the patience to know that we will “get it” eventually, because we already “have it”.  We just have to come to the acceptance of what we already know.