Birthday Thoughts

Happy Birthday?

My 76 th birthday is at the end of May. I am having a difficult time celebrating. I feel more loss than gain. The year has added a few more wrinkles, increased my alopecia, and blurred my vision. Overhearing my dentist refer to me as that ‘kindly old man’ popped my self-belief that I was still in middle age.

How Long?

The author, Oliver Burkman, recently wrote that we are typically born with 4000 weeks of life. Crap! I have used all of my allotment. How can I give myself another 1000 weeks?

Am I a Statistic?

The internet offers endless advice on how to live longer. While advice is valuable, it also creates stress. Should I be more careful and cautious? Am I walking enough? Too much? Am I eating the best diet? Am I doing the right exercise? On and on and on.

Life expectancy is a statistical estimate. There’s no guarantee how long life may last. And no way to know. While I sometimes feel old, and I foresee infirmity in the future, I rebel at these thoughts. I don’t want to base my life on statistical analysis!

Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)

Hell no! I’m not ready to go. I won’t give in or give up!
I still am healthy so it’s my time to live my dreams and indulge in my passions. I want to do the things I love regardless of consequences (well almost regardless). I want to heed the advice from this popular quote.

If I had my life to live over, I’d dare to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax, I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones…If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies. “

Nadine Stair

My birthday wish is to be more carefree and less serious about life. I want to view life as a wonderful sequence of moments across a full spectrum, from hard to easy, from sad to happy. I want to take down the filters of apprehension and experience the thrill of the ride! I will happily take another 1000, 500 or 50 weeks of moment to moment life.