Archives for July 2010

This is a guest post by Barrie Davenport of Live Bold and Bloom.

For anyone under 50 reading this, I have some good news for you.  50 is pretty darned good!

I even surprise myself by writing this, because believe me, I never thought the day would come when I would embrace being half a century.  But it has arrived, and it doesn’t stink.

Yes, yes — there are the inevitable physical changes that are quite unsettling.  Things do start to droop, wrinkle and expand.  Sometimes you will catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and wonder who that middle-aged person is.  On the outside, you may look like a grown-up, but on the inside it’s crazy how you still feel like you are 30.  Or younger.  (Ask my teenagers.  They hate that about me.)

When I was in my 30’s and 40’s, I took life much more seriously.

In fact, I think I was mysteriously older then than I am now.  Is that possible?  When you are busy building a career, raising children, accumulating stuff, and creating a lifestyle, you are defined by that busyness.  It’s serious work.  You have to make money to pay for the lifestyle.  Your kids need to be raised right lest they become a scourge on society and embarrass you by living in a trailer and eating bugs.

Those years are fulfilling and wonderful, but they also are fraught with upheaval and angst.  Things that once didn’t matter when you were younger, like having the right cocktail napkins or winning yard of the month, somehow matter so very much.  We struggle toward some kind of perfection and achievement that is ‘out there’ somewhere.

I don’t know about you, but I have spent a lot of time trying to create the self I thought I should be.  I cobbled together the perfect me made from pieces of this and that.  The clothes I wear, the neighborhood we live in, the car I drive, the friends I have.  It looks pretty nice from the outside.  And much of it is nice on the inside too.

But I spent way, way too much time in the work of crafting myself, and far too little time just being myself.

When you are spinning your wheels to maintain this beautifully crafted life, you miss out on a whole lot of real living.

If I were able to time travel and visit my twenty or thirty-year-old self, there are some things I would really like to teach me.  Since I can’t do that, hopefully you will benefit from some of the lessons I’ve learned over the last 50 years.

1. 50 doesn’t feel like 50.  It doesn’t feel like the age you imagined when you are in your 20’s or 30’s.  For the most part, it feels the way you feel right now.  But smarter and more confident.  You also have more time and resources to enjoy life.  So don’t fear it.  Look forward to it.
2. Experience life before you settle down.  Whatever it is you want to do or experience, do as much of it as you can before you have children.  Especially travel.  Live in a hovel and drive a beat-up Dodge Dart if you have to.  But go have some really great, amazing, mind-blowing experiences.
3. Money and stuff are not all that important.  Yes, you want enough to be comfortable and do the things you want to do.  But accumulating for the sake of accumulating is so boring and empty.  Feed the soul, not the ego.
4. Don’t try to impress people.  That’s an act that brings nothing but a momentary ego boost.  Be real with people instead.  Connect with fewer people on a level that is deeper and more profound.
5. Let your kids fail.  Your kids will be okay, even if you think they are headed for the juvie right now.  Don’t come to their rescue all the time.  Don’t manage every detail of their lives or over-schedule them with tao quan dao or viola lessons.  Give them some boundaries, and then relax about them.
6. Bad things will happen.  Part of living and getting older is experiencing upheavals in life.  People lose jobs, get divorced, die.  When you are younger, and things have gone pretty well, this can be shocking.  The bad things won’t kill you.  You will learn from them if you allow it.
7. Not much is worth fighting about.  If you can avoid it, don’t fight.  Step back from arguments with your spouse or family member or neighbor.  When you feel anger surging up and you want to say that snarky thing on the tip of your tongue, just close your mouth and walk away.  Let yourself calm down.  You don’t have to be right or win the argument.  It just doesn’t matter that much.
8. Little things stick with you.  So pay attention to them.  Like watching your child sleep.  Preparing a meal with your family.  Sharing a great laugh with an old friend.  That is the real stuff life is made of.
9. Keep having fun.  Fun is way underrated.  With all of our responsibilities, fun seems like an indulgence.  It shouldn’t be.  It should be a requirement.  Remember what you did to have fun when you were younger, and go do it again.  Leave the house messy and the yard un-mowed for the weekend.  You will remember the fun, not the clean house or yard.  Make time for fun.
10. Make things simpler.  Pick the five most important things in your life now, and focus on those things.  Let the other stuff go.  Let go of the activities, the events, the commitments, the shopping, the to-do lists.  Stop the busyness and really enjoy the important things you have right now.
11. Keep your brain active.  Don’t get into a mental rut.  Do new things, learn new things, explore new ideas in all areas of your life.  Keep challenging yourself and your mind.  Be curious and interested in the world around you.
12. Hang out with younger people.  Stay connected with what the generation behind you is doing and thinking.  Establish friendships with them.  You will benefit and learn from each other.  Don’t act superior, because younger people may know a whole lot more than you do!
13. Keep exercising and eating healthy.  You know this, but I’ll remind you anyway.  The older you get, the more important a healthy lifestyle is.  In my 20’s, I could shovel down a Wendy’s hamburger and fries every day and never see the difference.  Now I just look at a hamburger and my butt gets bigger.
14. Manage aging, but why fight it?  You can spend a fortune on face creams, plastic surgery, hair growth formulas, and botox, but eventually you realize you are fighting an uphill battle.  Groom yourself nicely.  Stay fit.  Have unsightly things removed.  But accept the beauty of aging.  A striking mature man or woman is much more attractive than someone who looks overly taunt, tanned or top-heavy.
15. Everyone doesn’t have to like you and vice versa.  One of my friends likes to say, “She’s not in my cluster.”  Sometimes there are people in your life who are just not the right fit or who drain you dry.  It is fine to back off from them or even let them go.
16. Marriages evolve and change.  The feelings you had for the man or woman you married will mutate and evolve several times over the life of a marriage.  Hopefully you will evolve in the same direction or at least embrace and accept the changes in the other person.  It takes work, and sometimes it takes counseling.  Don’t gloss over those changes or you may wake up next to a stranger one day.
17. Yes, you can still have great sex.  When I was in my 20’s, I thought you stopped doing it when you were in your early 40’s.  I assumed middle aged people would no longer want to disrobe in front of each other.  I’m happy to inform you that this is not the case.
18. Tend to your friendships.  Especially your oldest friendships.  These are the people who know and love you best, in spite of your flaws.  Treat them like the precious gems they are.
19. Stop worrying.  Worry does absolutely nothing productive.  In fact, it is counterproductive.  The more you worry, the more you reinforce the problem or concern in your brain.
20. Everything is not always black or white.  Life is often very ambiguous.  Sometimes there isn’t a right or wrong decision or choice.  Things are not always completely clear.  You may not get THE answer, so you just have to wing it.
21. Take action on your dreams.  If you’ve been putting things off — a new career, more education, the big trip — start taking action right now to make it happen.  Don’t dream about it anymore.  Start doing it.
22. Don’t dwell on your wounds.  Everyone has something that has caused pain and has been limiting them in some way.  If you need help to deal with it, then get it right away.  Don’t let the past limit your future.
23. Embrace change.  As uncomfortable as it is sometimes, change allows us to stretch and grow.  New things feel awkward and scary at first, but those feelings go away, and you are left with something bigger and bolder in your life.
24. Be vulnerable.  Allow yourself to feel, to be open and authentic.  Tear down any emotional brick walls you have built around yourself and feel every exquisite emotion, both good and bad.  This is real life.  This is how you welcome new opportunities.
25. Count your blessings every day.  I know, this is a refrigerator magnet line, but practice it daily anyway.  There is so much good, so much beauty, so much love in your life.  What more do you really need?  You have so much right now, you just need to pause long enough to appreciate it.

Barrie Davenport is a personal and career coach and the founder of Live Bold and Bloom, a blog about bold and fearless living.  Download her free ebook, How to Live a Meaningful Life.

Photo by: Pierre Pouliquin

If the economic downturn has clouded your mind with worry, then our new sister site, What Money Cannot Buy, is for you.  Over the past few weeks, What Money Cannot Buy users, a positive, resourceful group of individuals, have submitted dozens of simple pleasures and priceless moments that make them happy and don’t cost a dime.  So ignore the gloomy news forecasters and get your bliss on for free.

Here’s a sample of 44 entries that were recently submitted to the site:

1. Realizing you were smiling the entire time you were talking to someone, right after you hang up the phone.
2. The warm coziness of my own bed after I return home from a long business trip.
3. Playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to settle a decision with one of your friends.
4. When a wild animal is tame enough to eat food right out of your hand.
5. Crying on my sister’s shoulder.  Without the help of my family and close friends, I would be lost in a world of emotion, stress, and confusion.
6. Picking and eating fresh fruit right off the tree.
7. The joy of watching a baby smile.
8. The proud look on my 4-year-old son’s face when he learns a new skill.
9. The bittersweet emotions that rush through your body on the very last day of high school.
10. Time with the love of my life.  Last May, my husband of 27 years was diagnosed with cancer and given 3 to 6 months to live.  We prayed, cried, loved, and laughed.  Now, 11 months later, we are still savoring every smile, kiss, and breath.  We know these moments will end sooner rather than later, but we are so grateful for the time we do have together.
11. The rush you get when you’re driving on the open road and your favorite song randomly plays on the radio.
12. The comforting sound of my father’s car pulling into the driveway when he finally returns from a long business trip.
13. When my baby girl looked up at me and said, “Daddy!” for the very first time.
14. Seeing two elderly folks who are madly in love.  It’s a sight of love that has surpassed the tests of time.
15. Kissing in the rain.
16. The feeling of cool morning grass under your bare feet when you walk out to get the newspaper at sunrise.
17. Beginner’s eyes.  You’ll never see it again for the very first time.
18. The sound and sight of ocean waves.
19. The feeling you get inside when you go out of your way to make someone’s day a little brighter.  Doing something nice and unexpected for somebody else doesn’t always require money, and often the gesture has more meaning when it doesn’t.
20. A good photograph of a special moment.  It transforms the moment into a tangible keepsake and helps make the memory of that moment last a lifetime.
21. A rainbow breaking through the storm clouds on a calm, rainy summer afternoon.
22. The exhilarating rush of adolescent love.  Those magical moments of adolescent lust and affection that only you and one other person rightly remember.
23. The little kicks and pokes I feel daily as I enter the last month of my first pregnancy.  It’s truly remarkable!
24. Sharing a good laugh with friends and family.  Some of the most memorable moments in my life have been moments spent in laughter.
25. The excitement of swinging on a swing as high as you possibly can.
26. The simple fact that I can read the sincerity in her eyes when she says, “I love you.”
27. The awesomeness of skipping rocks across water.  It doesn’t matter how old I get, this one never gets old.
28. The tears of joy that flow when you see your beloved for the first time after a 10 month deployment to Iraq.  All the months of struggle and loneliness are washed away the second he gets off that plane.
29. The soothing comfort of an old familiar smell.  Earlier today pulled into my parent’s driveway after being away for over a year.  I could smell familiarity in the air – the scent of the pine tree in the neighbor’s yard.  And as I headed through the front door, more familiar smells consumed my senses.  Gosh, it feels good to be home.
30. The keen wisdom my grandfather has acquired slowly over the course of 86 years, and the amazing stories and life lessons he shares with me every time I visit him.
31. A first kiss.  The sweet rush of butterflies in your tummy when you kiss someone special for the very first time.
32. When you look into the eyes of your best friend and know, without a doubt, that you can trust her.  You can see it in her eyes and you can feel it in your heart.  She has no ulterior motive.
33. The first sight of daffodils poking through the snow after a long, hard winter.
34. The realization of true love.  The warm feeling you get many years after your first kiss when you realize you married the right person.
35. The surreal beauty of watching lightning strike in the distance.
36. An unexpected compliment.  It seemed like just another dreary Monday morning, but when she walked into my office and said, “I love your shirt! That color looks great on you,” it brightened the rest of my day.
37. A peaceful, romantic picnic with your significant other on a warm sunny day.
38. The joy of telling an interesting true story.  One of the most enticing roles we lead in life is that of a storyteller.  There are few things more satisfying than telling a true story that others enjoy listening to.
39. The feeling of self-confidence is unquestionably priceless. It cannot be purchased with money, but it can buy you more opportunities and take you farther than any amount of money ever could.
40. The excitement of a white Christmas.
41. A pillow fight with two of your best friends.
42. When my cat snuggles up on my chest while I’m laying on my back.  He’s so warm and fuzzy and cute.
43. Grilled steak and potatoes home-cooked for me by my husband on a lazy Friday night after I’ve had a long week.  Nothing beats sitting at home in my pajamas and eating my favorite food, made by the man I love, with the man I love.
44. When the song on the radio ends right as you pull into the driveway.

If you enjoyed these simple pleasures and priceless moments, be sure to check What Money Cannot Buy every day for a quick, fresh dose of positive content.

Photo by: Ricky David