I will never politicize this blog, but I do want to say that I will be happy when this day is over. I am so sick of the robocalls! Our home phone which is typically a dust collector has been called so much lately that it’s hot to the touch. I’m sure that I don’t have to tell blog readers to go vote. Most of us probably already have voted. I remember as a kid, there was only one day and one option as to where to go vote, and my sister and I would stand in line forever with my parents at the local elementary school library with our neighbors, well into the evening, on voting days. I know that I am going to sound like a cranky old lady who walked miles to school, in three feet of snow, uphill both ways (that is all mostly true), but there really are no excuses when it comes to voting. It is our civic duty and great privilege. Did you hear that, kids? (I have two “voting age” sons and one who just missed the cut-off – oh my goodness, I still can’t believe that my kids are this old.)
For some reason Madeleine Albright has been on my mind lately. I remember reading about her biography years ago. I haven’t actually read the biography, but I read enough about it to find it intriguing. Madeleine Albright was our first female Secretary of State. She was age 60 when that occurred. Interestingly, she did not have big political or frankly, career aspirations for a lot of her life. She was happy raising her three daughters, taking classes to earn her Ph.D. and supporting her husband’s career. When her husband decided to leave her for another woman, and they later divorced, is when Madeleine started to take a career in politics seriously. She was 45-years-old at that time.
I’m not here to discuss whether Madeleine Albright did or didn’t do a good job being our Secretary of State. What I do find inspiring is that she was able to rise to such an important position in our country and in history, in her later life. It was not her life’s ambition to be a politician. I really like this quote of hers:
“Women can’t do everything at the same time, we need to understand milestones in our lives come in segments.”
I find that quote comforting. It’s okay to put our focus on different aspects of our lives at different times. Sometimes our families will have the focus of our lives, sometimes it will be our careers and creative pursuits, and sometimes it will be our romantic relationships. Sometimes the focus will just be on our own overall health – mental, spiritual and physical. The key is that it is impossible to be highly focused on all areas of our lives, all at once. When we try to do that, we just get scattered, stressed and end up doing a lackluster job at everything.
My husband left an article recently published in the Wall Street Journal on my desk. It talked about a divide that is occurring between the older generation and the younger generations coming up. The article stated that to close up the divide, we should take the opportunity to fulfill the needs that we all have, while going through our living experience together. There is an biological/historical argument that older people are programmed to have the need to nurture and younger people have the need to be nurtured. Successful daycare programs have been set up combining the very young with the very old. In Britain, a woman in her fifties and financially able to retire early, set up a program for other people like herself to give back to society, in the teaching capacity. There was so much interest for people wanting to teach in their later years, that there is a waiting list for being part of this program!
“Today is the doorstep between everything until now and everything from now.”- Ophira and Tali Edut
It’s never too late to get started on an old dream, a new dream, or just to start to dream again. We all have something to give and to do, until they day that we take our final breath. Smart Thinking (one of my favorite Twitter feeds) posted this the other day – “Your death clock started ticking the day you were born.” I don’t mean to sound morbid or scary by stating that quote. I honestly find that statement to be freeing and daring. I think that the sooner you make peace with the fact that death is inevitable, the more the focus becomes on truly taking advantage of living and all of the glories that come with the experience of living.
Today is the day to take risks. I always tell my kids that you should always ask for what you want. The worst case scenario is that the answer will be “no”, but that only means that you’ll just be in the same position that you are in right now. I’ll end with another quote from Smart Thinking:
“Take risks. If you win, you’ll be happy. If you lose, you’ll be wise.”