Yep! You guessed it! I’m celebrating a birthday today and that is the inspiration for this post. Don’t get me wrong, I love birthdays – at least, most of the time. Birthdays are excuses to celebrate! Birthdays are opportunities to laugh, eat cake and give gifts. Birthdays also remind me that I’m aging and that’s the part that bugs me!
Let’s be honest. I don’t feel a day older than 30 on the inside. The outside? Well, that’s a different story. On the outside, the signs of my aging are evident. No hair. Wrinkles. Baggy eyes. Crepe paper skin. Saggy muscles (no matter how much I work out). Failing eyesight. Slower running pace. You get the picture! I may feel 30 on the inside but on the outside, I’m 30 x 2 + . . .
“Youth is wasted on the young!” I believe that George Bernard Shaw said that! He got it! Being an older (and hopefully wiser) person, I get it too! What I wouldn’t give for a little youth right now! What I would do with youth! Man! I could move mountains! At least I think I could. But, what if I couldn’t . . . based solely on the presence of more youth in my veins? What if moving mountains has nothing to do with youth? Interesting thought, huh?
If life has taught me one thing, it’s that moving mountains depends on vision, determination and grit. I’ve seen a lot of people who possess abundant youth, yet are glaringly devoid of vision, determination or grit. All youth really guarantees is that one might have a bit more energy. More energy is a good thing but more energy does not ensure significance. For that matter, neither does age.
Maybe that’s what bugs me most about birthdays. The only thing that they guarantee is that we survive one more year on this rock we call home. Things like vision, wisdom, maturity and significance have their genesis in choices. Age merely reflects how many trips around the sun we’ve survived. That’s all. The choices we make determine the character we possess, not our age.
So, birthdays bug me – not necessarily because I grow older, but because they guarantee little. I am reminded that significance is a matter of choice. In light of this, I will work to honor this day and all other birthdays I am privileged to celebrate in the future, by choosing more wisely. Maybe from this perspective, aging is not such a bad thing.
Peace!
Mark E. Hundley
