To Infinity And Beyond

Dream impossible dreams.

To infinity and beyond.

Anything is possible.

Carpe diem.

No regrets.

The sky’s the limit.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Reach for the stars.

Be careful what you wish for.

Midlife Fork In The Road?

Isn’t that what leads us to the proverbial midlife crisis?

Ambition.  Can’t live with it.  Can’t live without it.

Or can we?  Live without it, I mean.

And maybe not live without it, but alter the course of our ambition.

I mean, alter it from selfish to selfless.

And by selfish, I don’t mean to say it’s wrong to be professionally ambitious.

And by selfless, I don’t mean we should sell all our belongs and live with just the shirt on our back.

But there is this rare opportunity, at it’s peak in mid life, that we can really get serious about where we currently are and where we ultimately want to end up.

Most likely, at midlife, these are two diametrically opposed paths.

Your Clock Is Ticking

“Aspire to inspire, before you expire.”   — unknown

Before we know it, our time will be through. No second chances. No do overs.

If tomorrow never comes, will you be ok with that?

Gamble With Your Health?

This Everyday Health article summarizes how we should think and act when we begin to think about a midlife colonoscopy, and whether or not to delay it.

Makes us uncomfortable to think about someone sticking a small camera-tube up our rear end.  Doesn’t it?

Last year, like always, the annual physical was completed the first week of January.  Dr. Weinberger wrote the appropriate prescriptions for a mid life adult, and off I went.

It’s embarrassing to say, but I never got the colonoscopy last year.  Where did the time go?  How could I let this happen. At 50, we are supposed to get a routine colonoscopy, right?

And here we are in March already and I still haven’t had the annual physical.  It’s next week.

You know what last year feels like right now?  Gambling.

Heavenly Dreams

Lorie Sheffer provides us with much “food for thought” today as we journey through our Mid Life Celebration.  Ladies and gentlemen, Lorie Sheffer:

What time frame do we put on reaching our dreams? How high do we aim? It’s fine if your dream is more of a whim, and it’s fine if you don’t have complete success. Sometimes getting there is half the fun. But sometimes we hit highs that we never imagined. For the following two ladies, life didn’t begin at 40; life began after 50.

Julia Child was not one to be rushed. She stood 6 feet 2 inches tall, came from a privileged background, was college educated and had jobs as an editor, as well as working for the Office of Strategic Forces during WWII. She married at age 34, which was unheard of in the 1940s, when most young women married right out of high school. Julia loved food, and she wanted something fun to do while living in Paris with her husband, so she took classes at Le Cordon Bleu. She wanted to teach American housewives how to cook the amazing foods she had mastered, and decided to translate recipes from French into English. It took her and her collaborators a decade to write Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and they were dismayed when their first manuscript was rejected. The legendary cookbook was finally published when Child was 49 years old. Julia’s television show, The French Chef, aired its first episode in 1963, when Julia was 51 years old.

Paula Hiers was a 4 year old growing up in Albany Georgia when Julia’s show aired. While Julia was teaching American cooks to “be fearless” in preparing dishes such as Boeuf a la Bourguignonne, Paula was learning how to make her Grandma Paul’s fried chicken. Paula grew up in much more humble surroundings. She married at a young age, lost both of her parents by the time she was 19, and raised her younger brother as well as her own two sons. Her husband, Jimmy Deen, drank heavily and Paula cracked under the stress. She started having severe panic attacks, which soon developed into agoraphobia. She would, at times, be unable to leave her home without having an incapacitating attack of severe anxiety.

Paula would find solace in cooking those wonderful comfort foods from her childhood. She later found the strength to take a job as a teller at a bank near her home, and save enough money to leave her abusive husband. To supplement her income, she made bag lunches for her young sons to sell to area business people. Out of that was born her catering business, The Bag Lady. From there, Paula opened her first restaurant, The Lady, in a tiny rented space at a local Best Western Hotel. Paula put in so much time at The Lady that some nights she slept in a booth for a few hours before starting a new day. She was not making much money, and she longed for a day when she could open a bigger restaurant for herself and her sons. After receiving a loan from her aunt, Paula opened The Lady and Sons in downtown Savannah Georgia. A food critic, who was passing through town, stopped on the suggestion of an innkeeper, and the rest is history.

Gordon Elliott got wind of Paula and featured her on Door Knock Dinners and Ready Set Cook.  Paula’s warm presence and down home personality did the rest. Paula’s Home Cooking made its Food Network debut in 2002, when Paula was 55 years old. A star was born. Paula has since written numerous best selling cookbooks, she has a total of three shows on Food Network and sells her own line of cookware. In 2004, she married her best friend, Michael Groover. Unlike Julia, Paula never set foot in a cooking school.

Don’t count yourself out of the game just because of age. Think what these ladies, and the rest of us, would have missed had Julia and Paula thought they were too old to dream.

“Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself.”   — Robert Collier

What is the difference between confidence and arrogance?

What is the difference between self-assured and boastful?

What is the difference between succeeding and failing?

Odds are we’ll fail.

But at least now we know how to increase our odds for success.

One Card Does Not Make A Stack

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”   — Robert Collier

Did you hear that?

Day in and day out.

Committed. Relentless. Focused. Confident.

Slavery Or Liberty?

“To yield and give way to our passions is the lowest slavery, even as to rule over them is the only liberty.” — Justin Martyr

A Wall Of Protection?

“Like a city whose walls are broken down, is a man who lacks self-control.” —  Proverbs

It's Our Responsibility To Teach Well

There is no peace without forgiveness.  No happiness without peace.

Watching the Winter Olympics this past weekend with our son (9), there was a special segment about 9/11, and the role that Gander (Canada) played in clearing American airspace.

It hit me very hard that our son had no clue what 9/11 was.

Shame on me.

Of course a mini history lesson began.  You know what his first reaction was to the loss of 3,000 innocent lives and mass destruction?

Revenge.  Typical human, emotional behavior. You and I have to exercise self-control, even in the worst of conditions.

Otherwise, there is none at midlife.

Winter Suomi Steps

“Step by step.  I can’t think of any other way of accomplishing anything.” — Michael Jordan

This month’s “theme” is Self-Control.

Self-control is simply two things: Focus and Discipline.

We must never get bored, focusing on the basic, common sense things.

We must never tire of the discipline it takes to stay focused.

Focus and Discipline are the two hardest things in the world for humans to do.

Three (fast) Men Of A Certain Age (50+)

Mid Life Celebration readers, it’s a privilege to welcome back Guest Blogger Lorie Sheffer, from Central Pennsylvania. Take it away Lorie:

“My new favorite TV show, Men of a Certain Age, recently asked the question, “At what age did you give your dreams away? At what age do you take them back?”

Think about it. What was your dream? Did you achieve it or did you give it away? Did the circumstances of life stand in the way? Did you even try? Did you revisit that dream and make it fit into your life in some unexpected way?

Some dreams seem silly, some seem heroic and some seem selfless. But all of them matter if they are something that is important to us. From American Idol to the Olympics to The White House, there are people who started with a dream. Every rehabilitation hospital is filled with folks whose dream it is to walk. Every AA meeting is filled with dreams of sobriety. From the streets of North Philadelphia to the sidewalks of Central City East in Los Angeles, people dream of a better life.

What is your dream? What WAS your dream? Over the next few blogs, I’d like to share stories of people who had dreams, and how they made them come true, most often in ways that they never expected.”

Thank you Lorie for getting us to think about our dreams and the dreams of others we know.  See you again next Sunday at Mid Life Celebration.

Nice, Respectable Young Men

Yesterdays post was a day early.  So today’s post will remain a personal reflection (but still with a message, if you pay attention).  The big gig, the 30th anniversary reunion is tonight, Saturday night, not last night.

Saturday night is traditionally the week’s most popular party night. However, 30 years ago, it was really just another night, not much different than the others.

Why?

Because every night was a party night. At least for me. Was one of those folks addicted to a good time.  Literally.

It’s a wonder I’m still alive.  Anyway, this morning, one of my college buddies wrote this note.  Seems yours truly, in spite of my irresponsible, good-time behavior, had it in me to try to make a difference for others. Here’s the excerpt:

“As I prepare for tonight, my mind drifts back to the person that wrote me a letter during that summer of 1980 and gave me the hard sale to join the colony during the upcoming fall semester. THANK YOU JEFF!! I can remember how you described the brothers and how you thought I would benefit from joining them. Wish I still had the hard copy of the letter, but now it is only good memories. Words will never be able to describe how much I have benefited as a person by being part of the greatest group of “balanced men”.  So many memories and they are still continuing. Must be impossible for outsiders to understand. But, WE DO!!”

One of the best ways to have peace at midlife is to have deeply-rooted relationships.

Tonight, there are a bunch of Sigma Phi Epsilon brothers (50-year olds) reuniting near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for a 30th anniversary celebration.

While attending West Chester State College (later West Chester University) 1977 – 1983, I became a “founding father” for a fraternity that earned it’s charter in 1980.

Mind you, I ain’t really the fraternity type, but the ten fellas who where chosen to start the “colony” where my friends, fellow Physical Education majors. Ended up being president (still wondering why) of the Beta (2nd) pledge class.

It took a year and about 36 young men to make it happen.

There is something remarkable about laying the foundation for something versus joining something already in place, without all the blood, sweat, tears, and bonding that occur from an overwhelming challenge to do what hadn’t been done before.

Through the years, this core group of founding fathers have had annual gatherings.  We were all single in the early years, but gradually wives and children started showing up.

Toso, Benny, Brad, Hop, Rick, Cort, Howard and a few others where the glue that kept the communication open and alive for three decades.

This Jimmy Buffett song, Cowboy In The Jungle, is dedicated to the Penn Tau founding fathers:

Don’t let our blind ambition, erase our intuition. Trying to cram lost years into two or three days.

There's Another Catch

The alternative to making hard decisions isn’t easier decisions, the alternative is disaster.

And there’s another catch.

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

For real.