I’m 48 years old. In less than half a year I turn 49. By conventional wisdom I’m supposed to be too old for a lot of things. Statistically speaking the better part of my life, time wise, is over. I’m heading into the period of winding down and accepting what life has given me.
At the beginning of last year, when I was 47, I started my ketogenic journey. Now I haven’t been able to weigh myself in the last two Mondays because I’m away on training. But as of my last weigh in two weeks ago I was just shy of 100 pounds lighter than when I started. But I’m supposed to be too old to lose weight. It’s just too hard at my age.
Up until last year I spoke only one language. Ok, technically speaking that’s still true. I’m only fluent in English. But I’m working on learning Portuguese, German, and Spanish. Saturday morning I took an Uber ride with a woman who is a native Spanish speaker and she complimented me on my pronunciation skills. I’m not fluent by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I’d say I have a long ways to go to get that level in any of the three languages. But I’m clearly able to take in a new language and do it correctly. But I’m not supposed to because I’m too old to learn new things. In fact it’s at this point that they say I should expect my faculties to start declining.
And job wise I just started a new career. I’m here doing my training as we speak. At a time when I’m supposed to be on the glide slope toward retirement at a career, I’m just taking off. But I’m supposed to be too old to be considering starting over in a job. I don’t have the years left in me to have a full career if I start over today.
But I’m choosing to get into shape. I’m choosing to learn new tricks. I’m choosing to start over. Why? I don’t know how much longer I have on this planet. None of us does. I could be half my age right now and still could be gone tomorrow. So I choose not to plan based off of a predetermined schedule that’s been arbitrarily foisted on me. I don’t worry if I have enough time to complete the tasks. I just worry about today.
And today I’ve decided I’d like to go to bed tonight a little bit better a person than I started this morning. Today I’ve decided that I don’t want to waste any of the time I have left on silly things that don’t make me better. After all I don’t know how much more of that time I have. Today I’ve decided I’ll start walking down paths that make me happier, including career paths. I don’t know how far I’ll get down the path before my time comes up, but who cares. I’d rather spend however much time I do have left on a happy path than I would being given twice as much time to walk down a miserable path.
Wake up each day with one mission. Be happy today. It doesn’t matter where you are in life. The beginning, the middle, or supposedly near the end. Take whatever time you have left, long or short, and just use it to be happy. Even if you’re supposed to be too old to start over, do it anyway if you aren’t happy with the way things are. Better to go out smiling not reaching your new goal than to go out sad living up to the expectations of acting your age.
Here’s to a new and brighter future at any age. Have a great day. Peace.
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