My week started by attending a funeral on Monday. I’m sure you’d agree that going to funerals are not a favorite thing for anyone to do in life. However, they’re definitely part of life and hard to avoid, the older you get. The experience at the beginning of the week encouraged me to contemplate life- how quickly life can go by without the chance to chase your dreams.
By Wednesday, I attended the Sassy Girlfriend Talk where the topic was age. We shared in a circle what age we felt in our head. Not the one you see when you look in the mirror, but the one, when you close your eyes, you truly FEEL. I’m asking all of you now to close your eyes and think-what age are you in your head? If you could turn back the clock 10 years, what decisions would you make in your life? What dreams would you go after? Now the big question for you, why can’t you chase that dream right now?
I’ll admit it, in my head, I think I’m 25! Don’t laugh, I really do! I think I can do anything I set my mind to do. Honestly, I think this attitude serves me well since Sunday, I rode my bike 58 miles. I suppose if I felt 65 in my head, I would have hesitated to try to tackle this. I think I’ll stick with 25 since it seems to be working for me. It never occurs to me that I’m at an age when I might not be able to accomplish something. You might refer to this as “denial”, however, I call it living and taking advantage of every day.
My son called me yesterday from Columbus to share an experience. He was shaken and didn’t know how to make sense of his day. He explained that he had just finished his lunch break and was walking back to work. He walked out of the airport door and was on the sidewalk when he heard a loud horrible thud right in front of him. He looked up, not understanding what was happening around him. There, 10 feet in front of him lay a man. The man had jumped off the top of the parking garage. Instinctively responding, he ran to where the man had landed and knelt down to check on him. He checked his pulse to see if he was alive.
As he went back to work and tried to make sense of things, it occurred to him that the man had landed 10 feet in front of him, directly in his path. One or two seconds later, that man would have made a direct hit. What are the chances? How lucky he was to avoid that fate. For the first time, I believe he felt his mortality.
In my experiences working with women, I have realized that all of us, at some time or another, take life for granted. We casually put our dreams and desires in life on a list and say we’ll get back to them when we can. Maybe we want to go back to school and finish a degree or finally start our own business. Maybe it’s taking that trip to visit our friend we haven’t seen in years. Whatever it is, we assume that it will all be there for us when we’re ready to take action. We assume that we have many years ahead of us to live.
My suggestion to you is that you all channel the age of 25 and believe you can accomplish anything you want. Stop putting your goals and desires on hold, waiting for the absolute right time to change your life. The right time is NOW!
