Birthday-Thoughts

Birthdays are celebrations of life when you are present to celebrate and can be actively involved in the celebration. A “Celebration of Life” for you happens when you’re no longer around for the celebration - you’re dead. (Jean) Thankfully, I’m around for this year’s celebration of my birthday today. I have been actively involved in expressing the way in which I want to spend this birthday. At times, my life’s journey has felt like being on a roller-coaster ride and other times like a cruise ship sailing smoothly along. ...

 “Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” (Betty Friedan) Life happens. The day has come that I am officially a Senior Citizen. While I’m looking forward to receiving my monthly pension cheques and all the other discounts and perks that come with my senior status, this post contains some of my observations over sixty-five years. Sixty-five years is a long life. From the moment we’re born, the process of learning how to live in this world starts. We learn from our caregivers what are the social and cultural mores we are expected to live up to. Each and everyone of them does the best job they can to impact our positive growth and development. By the time one arrives at age 65, it’s alright to admit to oneself, if not to everybody else, that all these well-meaning and trusted souls were imperfect themselves. This means that I can’t be anywhere near perfect or any kind of saint. In our human nature, there are flaws. “Thinking well is the greatest excellence and wisdom: to act and speak what is true, perceiving things according to their nature.” (Herakleitos) ...