2021 October 19 Life reimagined for Baby Boomers and everyone.

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7everyminute and 7everyminute.com, a podcast and website by, for, and about Baby Boomers. Tonight, we have some more in personal development, but more from a self imaging perspective. I'm going to do it in the form of an essay on aging. 

I was actually planning on speaking on an entirely different topic, but then a dear friend sent me an essay on aging and it happened to catch me at just the right moment I guess. I took a read through it. I think it was probably sent to one of these Facebook friend tracker sorts of things, because you're supposed to forward it on seven times and all of that, but there were some interesting points in there. It made me smile at different times, so I paraphrased it and rewrote a fair amount of it.

But I think we’ll take a run through it. I'm going to read it to you and send me any comments that you may have. It's simply entitled The Advantages of Getting Older. It starts off and says: 

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair, a flatter stomach or a youthful figure.

As I got older, I became kinder and less critical of myself. I became my own friend. I saw many dear friends leave this world far too soon before experiencing the great freedom and perspective that aging brings. I missed them and I realized what a gift aging can be. I'm able to live my life as I want, to set my own goals and priorities, and I have learned that I don't have to satisfy the opinions of others.

I will dance to those wonderful hits of my youth or my favorite polka or any darn music that I want to because I realize that dancing connects your feet to your heart, and very few people can know your heart like you do yourself. If I want to, I will walk down the beach in aging shorts over a well-worn body and dive into the waves with wild abandon, ignoring the glances of others, where they too will grow old and look at life through newly opened eyes.

I know that sometimes I forget something, but I've also learned that there are some things in life that should be forgotten. I still remember the important things, my friends, my family, those who have helped me and those who I have had the honor to help. I may remember that my heart has been broken, but broken hearts and disappointments give us strength.

They give us understanding and compassion. A life that has never suffered will never know the joy of being imperfect. And in discovering the perfection that lies within each of us, each one of us, I am fortunate to have lived long enough to have a smile etched forever in the furrows of my face. I can remember those who have never had the opportunity to discover the contentment of a lifetime of experience and wisdom who never had the opportunity to laugh.

As I get older, it's easier to be positive, for you realize that almost everything is doable, although perhaps not in the way you had originally envisioned. Hopefully you gained the confidence to no longer question yourself. You've earned the right to be wrong, because I now realize that mistakes are just tools to teach us more about life and living.

So I like being old. I like being the person I have become, I know I’ll not live forever, but while I am here, I will strive to not waste time regretting what could have been, but was not. I will continue to visualize all that could be and to strive to be a part of a better future. One where I, and my children, would like to live.

And if I feel like it, I'll have dessert every day, because life is still full of joy. 

So that's a heavy paraphrasing of what I was sent and there's a lot of things in there. What caught my attention was it went well with what we've been talking about in so far as visualizing your life, setting goals, and living the life that you want.

Our aging really hasn't stopped us from doing that, and actually it's given us a lot of tools to make that easier. Now, if we just go through that, there’s a couple of key takeaways that we can come up with. Things like, even as you age, life is still good if you look for the good. It's okay to be you. The unique, wonderful uniquely only you. You don't have to be what society or at what everyone else thinks is normal.

You just have to be kind and considerate and live your life to fulfill your dreams. We have gained so much from our experience and from our experiences. Even the difficult ones taught us really important lessons, lessons that we should try and share to make the world a better place for ourselves and for everyone. Finally, it's okay to look our age, to be our age. Society and marketing might tell us that we should look youthful, but really do you want to be a teenager again?

Our twenties weren't so perfect either, if you remember them. Every age has its good times and its challenges. We should just celebrate all the good in our lives at every age, and appreciate all that God and nature gives us and be thankful and share that joy with everyone. I know it's a little short, and we can come back and talk more about it over the following weeks.

I'll probably tweak it a little bit, but I think there's a lot there. I have to look up honestly, to take a look around and see if that has an attribution to it, or is owned by somebody, the core essay that I saw, and if it doesn't, I'll post it on the website I think there's enough good there, and certainly if I put it up, it'll be in Creative Commons.

So you can just take and pass it along as you wish. So that's it for the week. Thank you for stopping by. I know it's very different than it has been in the past, but I think I'm really heading more towards introspection and to remind everybody that there's a lot of good in life; that even though there are challenges, that there were challenges at all times in our lives. Maybe they weren't the health challenges that we have now, if that's what you're experiencing, or perhaps the relationship challenges, if that's what you're experiencing. There were health challenges. There were relationship challenges, and we moved past them because we were hopeful for the future. There's no reason still that we can't be hopeful for the future because the future is a good place to go.

There's a lot of good things still waiting to happen, and we can still be a part of them. That's the message for this evening and that'll be the message going forward. So thanks again. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear, and what topics in specific you would like covered.

Have a great week. Thanks for visiting. Remember to live the life that you always dreamed of, because that's the path of true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone, and see you next week on 7everyminute and 7everyminute.com. Thank you.