One of the coolest things about keeping a blog is being able to see what you were thinking years ago. Some of my old entries feel as if they were written by a different person, even though I don’t think I’ve really changed much in the nearly 6 years and nearly 2400 entries since I began journaling online. (That figure is astonishing in itself, since I don’t think I’ve ever kept a paper journal for more than about three entries.)
I just found an entry, Forty by Forever, that I wrote about 5 years ago. At the time there was a popular meme called 40 x 40, in which the writer listed 40 things he or she wanted to do by age 40. (My guess is that it was invented by someone who was about 22.) There really weren’t 40 interesting things I wanted to do in the next five years, and I objected to the implication that nothing interesting happens after forty. So instead, I wrote a list of 40 things I had done already and another 40 I hoped to do later. Looking back at the list from within spitting distance of 40 (less than a week!) I can make a few updates:
I can’t really think of many things I’d add to the list. I wish I’d included “travel to all seven continents” so I could mark that done. I would like to include “travel to the Moon or at least into orbit”, and it’s one of my great regrets that I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity to do that. I’d like to include more children in my life, not my own offspring but as friends or as nieces and nephews, whether by blood or honorary ones. One thing I miss about the neighborhood where I grew up was how easy it was to hang out with people of any age there. Except at the boathouse, I rarely encounter people too young or too old to work these days.
All of the goals that I haven’t completed still apply. There are some goals I could add about becoming more comfortable flying a plane or driving in foreign countries (Taiwan! Eep!) but the item about “Keep doing things that scare me” covers those. I’m a little less interested in the flying ones currently, but all the ones relating to freedom to live my life as I’d like have only gained in importance to me. Of course if I did have more free time and spent it living in a beautiful place, I’d still be squandering that time checking email every ten minutes, with my back to the beautiful view. Maybe I should add a goal about breaking bad habits and lengthening my attention span, too.
You have done well! (The one about trying to do
things that scare you is perhaps the secret of your success.) But you certainly wouldn’t want to have done it all at forty — you’re only halfway there.