Disney Leadership Keynote Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five interconnected sites.
“Gentle, generous, direct, and compellingly hopeful.”
The night clerk (early 20’s) at the hotel in February read MLC. She left this note a few days ago.
More and more convinced at this relatively unknown book’s power to challenge any reader, any age. To revive anyone’s hope that they matter and they can matter for others.
It’s a book bathed in love. It’s gentle, generous, direct, and compellingly hopeful.
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The beauty of life is it’s diversity. For example, even the fundamental stages of life, are diverse:
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This month jeff noel is challenging Mid Life Celebration readers to follow all five daily blogs about work life balance. To navigate instantly from this mental attitude blog to his physical health blog, click -> go to Next Blog
A few weeks ago I read one of Jeff’s posts about a young man with disabilities who was a member of a marching band. It reminded me of a story I read about in our local paper a number of years ago.
A young man of high school age had cerebral palsy. He wanted to be a member of his school’s marching band. This didn’t seem to be a problem, as he had someone who pushed his wheelchair in parades. Then the band began to include some intricate moves in order for a chance to win in field competition, and now this young man could possibly hold them back from their ultimate goal of collecting a trophy. They wanted him to sit on the sidelines and play from there.
A neighbor and I got into a discussion about this issue as it was being played out in the papers. She asked me, wouldn’t I be upset if my kids had worked really hard and were being held back from a possible trophy because of a person with a disability? I answered that I was pretty certain that my kids wouldn’t want to participate unless this young man could part of the group.
To this day, I don’t know who eventually won that trophy. I know that the band in question was not from the school district in which I live, but I cannot remember which district it was. I’m not even sure if the young man got to participate or not. Still, it leaves me with questions. At what point is winning not the most important thing? Are there greater lessons to be learned than perfect formations and hitting all the right notes? Is it better to be remembered for what we won, or how we treated our friends along the way? Should we reach out to those for whom life may not be so easy, or should we reach out for a chance at that brass ring, no matter whom we have to knock out of the way to get it?
Mid Life Diversity. What makes us different is what makes us special. Where I’ve worked the past 25 years, we place a HUGE value on our differences. It’s the fabric of our great organization.
So, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Easter. To me, it’s the single greatest day in the history of man.
Knowing full well that many readers do not believe in Easter, I would now like to wish you great JOY in whatever, and however, you celebrate anything that’s important to you.
I hope you get this sentiment. I can not tell you what’s important in your life, any more than you can tell me what’s important in mine. And by the way, this is called acceptance. We all need and deserve this from each other.
However, may I please be so bold as to say, at mid-life, we are giving an awakening of sorts. And once again, this doesn’t happen to everyone, including some reading this now. That’s perfectly ok.
Some of us admit to this stage in our lives, and choose to embrace it, or deny it. Others, for a variety of unknown reasons, will be unaware of it’s presence. Yet I yield to common sense. We all have a mid-life. It just doesn’t always look the same in every person. Here’s what I mean.
Fact, we are all born and we will all die, and somewhere, there is a middle.
A close relative gave birth to a son. He lived ten precious days before he left Earth. Did he have a midlife? I’m not wise enough to say. By all usual and customary thinking, probably not.
A high-school friend during our senior year, died in a tragic car accident. Did he have a midlife? Maybe. Probably. But it wasn’t the sort of awakening that midlife can bless us with, in my opinion.
Still another friend, my age (49), went to bed one night and never woke up. Did he have a midlife? Probably. In his case, maybe the beginning of his midlife turned out to suddenly be the end of his entire life.
If you’re still reading, thank you for your gracious attention.
Whatever midlife is, and whether you believe it exists or not, there is one fact that is indisputable.
We get one human life to do whatever it is we are supposed to do. One chance. One!
Quiz time. Name one person in the history of mankind that hasn’t endured some form of Hell on Earth? Life is full of pain and suffering, disappointment, loss. It can also be filled with joy and blessings, success, gain.
Today, tomorrow, next week, next month, all year, next year, and until I die, I promise to try to make the world a better place.
This Mid Life Celebration blog is one small attempt to enlist others to do the same. We can, we will, if we all work together. Carpe diem, jeff 🙂
