I listened to an interesting podcast the other day when a counselor was saying that people often come to her with concerns and anxieties about their milestone birthdays. Her clients often seem to feel really upset if they think that a milestone birthday is nearing, and they haven’t completed the proverbial, rigid checklist of things that they feel they should have accomplished by such-and-such milestone. Her clients often seem to feel anxious about fitting it all in, into a neat little package with a pretty bow. The counselor said that she reminds her clients that these are silly, undue pressures which we put on ourselves with arbitrary/one-size-fits all dates and goal posts. While it is good to have goals, it is also good to be flexible about our goals, and to allow for our own individuality, and for unforeseen detours. Also, she said that if you have a milestone birthday coming up, say in the next three years, remind yourself about just how much life happens in a small span of three years. You have a lot of time in between milestone birthdays to live and to experience life. If you feel like your life isn’t going anywhere, and you are stuck, start at March of 2020 when the pandemic shutdown happened and think of all of what has happened in your own life from that moment, until now. Write down all of the happenings, the new relationships that came along, the job situations, events celebrated and experienced with loved ones, the day trips and the vacations, the ups and the downs, the changes in the structure of your daily life, etc. – all of that happened in only about three and a half years. And remember, not one of us could have planned for a pandemic to happen exactly when and how it did, and nor for the ramifications of that pandemic. Even with all of the slowdowns and haltings that this pandemic created, look at all of the life that you have lived in just three years! In between milestone birthdays is a period of ten years. A lot of life is packed in-between milestone birthdays. In short, the counselor was saying that it is best to view our milestone birthdays as just passing mile markers along the way (mile markers we were lucky to arrive to, still alive and vital and raring to go). And when we feel we aren’t accomplishing everything that we wanted to accomplish by a certain time period, it is helpful to look back and to remind ourselves about just how much we have accomplished and handled and experienced in a relatively short amount of time. When we do this, we can look forward into our futures knowing that this multitude of life’s happenings will continue on and on and on, until it is time for our ending day. While our time on earth is limited and we will probably not get to everything that we’d like to experience, what truly counts is the daily journey. Isn’t it better to be relaxed, and to be hopeful, and to be faithful, and to enjoy the ride as we move on down the roads of our own individual journeys, enjoying the travel, and the people, and the scenery along the way, instead of spending our time worrying and hand wringing about what life will look like at milepost 40, 50, 60, 70 or 80?? As Maya Angelou said, “Life is pure adventure.” And adventures are set in their own time and in their own ways, with lots of surprises and unexpected curveballs. The Cambridge dictionary defines adventure in this way: “an unusual, exciting, and possibly dangerous activity, trip, or experience, or the excitement produced by such activities.” I didn’t see anything in there about specific activities and timelines and accomplishments, did you?
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.