4/44

This week I had a birthday, in my family birthdays are a big deal it’s always a chance to spoil and to celebrate each other.  The truth is I love any excuse to celebrate others, celebrating myself is another issue however. It has always been a bit harder for me; it places me right in the middle of uncomfortable.  

As I stand on the cusp of a new year, I look and focus on all the gifts I have received and lessons I have learnt throughout my 40 odd years.  I’m looking forward to the next frontier; I don’t really have a master plan for what that entails that’s okay though, because I've learned that life interrupts the best of plans.  The important thing for me is that I know one who has crafted a master plan and that’s enough for me. 

This past year some friends and family died without warning. I disappointed myself and others, people I counted on didn't come through, I walked away from toxic relationships, but then again it wasn't all loss — total strangers showed up and my life was all the richer.

So in honour of this week’s celebrations I share 4 top lessons I learnt in 44 years. I share them with you now, mostly just because I can, but also in the hope that they might help you on your own journey to live more authentically, to live more of life without judgement of yourself and/or others, so that when the time comes for you to ‘check out’, you will have few regrets and more pride in what you left behind.

4/44

1.    Embrace the age you are and stop wishing you were a different age.

 Wishing yourself to be a different stage of your life is a waste of where you are.   You    cannot be productive if you are absent in your present stage.

2.    Stop worrying about other people’s opinion of you; it’s a huge waste of     your time.

        

Consuming your valuable time second guessing other people peoples opinion of you is a waste of resource, resource you could be using to build yourself. You've got to remember it’s only their opinion at the end of the day.

3.  Make friends with your children’s friends. They’ll make you laugh and  give you valuable Intel.

           The older you get there is a natural propensity to lean to grumpiness; laughter is good            for your soul.

4.   Stay out of other people’s business. It’s a full time job trying to deal   with  your own.

          Trying to work out your own issues is exhausting enough, why load yourself with other           people's complexities? as my girls would say, I am not about that life!

I have noticed that as I have grown my speech filters have become looser; this means I am more at ease about sharing my life viewpoints without fear of being too politically correct. I find this self-observation amusing because those who have known me for a considerable length of time might disagree with me and say probably my filters were already loose in my twenties!

 
I read a quote sometime back that makes me laugh every time I remember it. It said; you either like me or you don’t, It took me 40 something years to learn how to love myself I don’t have that kind of time to try and convince someone else to like me too.