Mid Life Celebration

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?

“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.

Spring Grove, Pennsylvania

Mid Life Celebration readers, I am pleased to introduce our Guest Blogger, Lorie Sheffer, from York, Pennsylvania. Lorie and I graduated from Spring Grove Area High School in 1997 1977. Lorie has a spin on midlife that will entertain and enlighten you. You are in for a treat. Take it away Lorie….

My email box usually contains at least one “Stupid, clueless men” joke a week, sent by my gal pals. The most recent: Q: What is gross stupidity?  A: 144 men in one room.

This is one of the kinder jokes. Most involve man parts and the use/misuse of said parts. I’m not so politically correct or dishonest as to say some of this stuff isn’t pretty darned funny. But underneath it all there is this undercurrent of a battle of the sexes as to who has it rougher, especially when it comes to aging. As a woman who has always had male friends, I seem to find myself defending men more and more often these days.

I was out shopping with my grandson a few years ago and the check out girl at the grocery store, when speaking to him, referred to me as “Mom”. “She’s my grandmother”, Carter corrected her. I actually looked into that sweet little face of his and asked him to “Shut it!”  Actually, since I am trying to be honest, it was more of a hiss. Was I becoming so age obsessed that I had hoped if some kid who had an after school job checking groceries mistook grandma for mom that magically made it so?  As if “Grandmother” is a dirty word.  No wonder my grandson looked puzzled. To a small child, Grandma equals magic!

This was about the time the realization hit me. We women are so obsessed with our changing hormones and expanding waist, our hot flashes and our mood swings, we seem to forget that aging is no picnic for the men, either. We tend to talk about it, while men seem to remain quiet for fear of appearing weak. Notice what the overwhelming theme of the commercials are when “guy shows” are on TV. They usually involve a 50-something couple in claw foot bathtubs (I still don’t understand the tubs), baby boomers giving one another “that look” before dancing down the hallway toward the bedroom, or my personal favorite, the teenaged girls advising newly divorced Dad he would be dateable if he used some man-color on that gray hair of his. (Maybe someone should tell Mr. Clooney and Mr. Gere they would be attractive to women if only they hit the Grecian Formula.)

I honest to God have a male friend who colors his chest hair to cover the gray.  If men aren’t lucky enough to have hair TO color, then surely they can send for some Rogain. Because, grand sense of humor that God seems to have, men start to lose hair where they want it around the same time women sprout hair in places that send them running to the waxing salons in droves.

Our age group is being bombarded by an industry that is literally making billions of dollars by playing to our insecurities, when in fact most times all you need is some dim light and a little patience. Most men would be thrilled to have their wives call them sexy or hot of whatever words we use to describe the above-mentioned George and Richard. I would be willing to bet most men are so concerned with their own age related issues that they don’t notice if our legs (or chins) are freshly shaved.

Test it out; say something nice to your significant other. Give a genuine compliment once a day, and let them know you appreciate them. Really, I think that’s all any of us wants. Maybe if we all just stepped outside of ourselves and tried to see through the eyes of the opposite sex, we would realize that we all have our issues. We’re in this together.

A friend sent me an email forward photo of a pretty teenaged girl, circa 1968; below the photo was the question, “Where are the cute hippie girls from the 60s?”

I scrolled down to another photo, this of a totally naked, very overweight, out shape, gray haired woman in her 60s. She was covered with stretched out and faded tattoos of Woodstock era images. She wore only flip-flops as she walked down the street, head held high.  Amazingly, she looked happy.

Humor goes a long way, so long as the object of the joke is laughing WITH us.  As Robert Browning wrote over a century ago, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”

Relax and Enjoy?

“What can be added to the happiness of a person who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscious?” — unknown

If ever there was a logical goal in life, perhaps this one should be near the top.

Simple.

Elusive.

Impossible?

They Could Ask You At Any Moment

“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.” — Saint Peter

Perhaps hope is elusive to us during a midlife crisis.

Perhaps hope surrounds us during a midlife celebration.

All this time, I’ve been asking you to think about your answer to the simplest, but most important question a young person may ask you.

Are you inspired enough now to come up with your own unique and special answer?

Simplicity

Simplicity.

“There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work.” — Joseph Joubert

So here’s my favorite:

Love.

Pushing Daisies?

“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” — Unknown

That would be a life full of Joy, don’t you think?

Have a joy – filled day.  Carpe diem.

A few days ago I posted a one-take-You Tube video while passing through the Columbia, South Carolina airport. Lexington Medical Center’s unbelievable track record of excellence caught my eye.

Well, they are even more amazing than we first thought. They’ve actually been rated number one for ten years, not eight.

They even have their own You Tube channel. So I checked it out. And may I suggest you think about doing the same?

Whether your You Tube videos are professionally done, whether you do them in one-take, or even if you’ve never shot a You Tube video, you can learn about excellence at any moment.

Click here, if you have a moment now.

The road to excellence has no finish line.

Many people I know perceive mid life as a time that signals the beginning of the downhill side of life – the decline.

Rubbish. However, Henry Ford once said something to this effect, “If you think you can, or you think you cannot, you are right.”

What is there to be joyful about at midlife?  Everything. Even the wellness challenges we all face. Pick one: mid life crisis or mid life celebration.

No brainer, eh?

Lexington Medical Center

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” — Victor Borge

Hope you enjoyed the rare Mid Life Celebration blog post yesterday.

Rare?  Yes.  In fact, it was probably the first of it’s kind. A joke.  And it brought joy to post it.

I have it in me.  Really, I do.  Every one has a sense of humor, even me, and laughter is good medicine.

Just yesterday, I was in the Atlanta airport heading to Dallas, and asked a couple with grown children, “Any advice on raising boys”?

With the husband still thinking of an answer, the wife instantaneously responded, “Have a sense of humor!”

What are the odds?

“Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.” — Edward de Bono

There are many ways to start talking about this.  And initially, I was simply going to let the quote “speak for itself”, without any additional dialogue.

However, me being me, well, that obviously didn’t happen.

But compromise is in order and I will end this Mid Life Celebration blog post with a top-of-mind thought.

Once I started writing, consistently, back in March, a transformation began. As if something inside me was awakened and began to grow. And then suddenly realized, I hadn’t even begun to discover what was possible.

Talk about a joyful experience.  Undiscovered joy, newly found, was remarkably  humbling.  And humility brings incredible joy.

Oh, and by the way….

“Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.”

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!  I say let your affairs be as one, two, or three and not a hundred or a thousand… We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.” — Henry David Thoreau

Amen.

“Happiness is your nature.  It is not wrong to desire it.  What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.” — Ramana Maharishi

Yesterday’s post spoke of escape, implying that when faced with an overwhelming obstacle, we may run from it, try to avoid it, ignore it, medicate it, deny it, etc.

We are always going to be faced with life’s challenges.  And the proverbial mid life crisis is more or less a universal phenomenon for virtually all adults.

We get to a place, don’t like it, and then think we can take a short cut to move past it.  Maybe.  Maybe some can.  I certainly couldn’t.

However, when I started to look inside for the answers instead of outside, my life began to transform.

Consider this, there is infinite joy to be had, to be discovered, to be shared.  I mean, happiness is our nature.

When I dream without any limits, I dream of others having this wonderful mid life celebration, instead of the proverbial midlife crisis.

“If you choose a job that you like you will never have to work another day in your life.” — Confucius

Looks good on paper.  Yet, I know so many mid life professionals who are stuck in a career or job that no longer (or never did) feeds their passion.

In many ways, for a variety of reasons, I’ve been there myself.  It is not pleasant. But we have mortgages, bills to pay, mouths to feed, etc.  So we do it.  Day in, day out.

This is one of the big causes of a mid life crisis, along with others like illness, disease, divorce, empty nest syndrome, death, bankruptcy, infidelity.

This week will likely focus on career joy. And the best way to get it is to have a job where you get to do more than you have to do. Ya with me?

“What’s past is prologue.” – Shakespeare

What’s past is simply what got us to where we are today. I’m thankful for that.

What’s here and now, is what will be past tomorrow. I’m thankful for that too.

What lies in the future is the choice we get to make. Our story is being written one day, one moment at a time.

To be or not to be, I mean, to be thankful or not to be thankful, that is the question.

And starting tomorrow, December’s question is, “Am I joyful and do I spread joy?”