I will celebrate my 50th birthday very soon. There are a few mixed emotions with the approach of this milestone, but for the most part, I am feeling happy, content and grateful. At a summer gathering of high school friends, there were a startling number of our buddies who have already passed. A glaring reminder not to take your days for granted.
In thinking about my 50 years on this planet I pondered what (if anything) those years have taught me. Here are my 5 life lessons from 5 decades of life:
Decade 1 – Your village will shape you and will be with you always.
Decade 2 – Life isn’t a fairy tale but love keeps giving and will last.
Decade 3 – Loss is a part of life and riding through the grief will bring you to a new place with a new perspective.
Decade 4 – The greatest blessings are sometimes unexpected.
Decade 5 – Resilience is a necessary life skill and the ability to problem-solve a gift.
Of course, hindsight is often better than 20/20 and the events contributing to my life’s lessons came with great joy and great pain/sorrow. I would like less of the sorrow and more of the joy going forward but of course, that isn’t how life works.
A couple of years ago I was struggling through a bumpy patch at work and made an off-handed comment about how soon I could retire. I downloaded a countdown app for my phone and punched in a date when I thought I might retire. The 4 digit number that popped up seemed so far in the future that it provided no comfort to my escapist dream. I then decided I would focus on the days I could enjoy the freedom of retirement. A similar 4 digit number popped up but that number seemed shockingly small! Those two different perspectives of almost the same amount of time shook me up.
The new number on my countdown app is my 100th birthday – about 18,250 days from now. My focus now is to remember that time moves both fast and slow simultaneously and that each of these days are precious not only because they cannot be recovered but also because they will collectively (with the 18,250 already passed) represent my life story and my legacy.
I trust my life lessons from my first 5 decades will serve me well for the next 5!
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