Senior wisdom

Go Out And Live Life Even If It Means Failing Once In A While

I have tried some things in life and failed in ways that are truly embarrassing.

I don’t like failing. It stings. That’s fairly obvious since no one likes failing, huh?

Also, I hate to humiliate myself. It’s bad enough to live through an embarrassing experience when it actually happens. But I have this tendency to go back in my mind and revisit embarrassing experiences. I know I’m not supposed to do this and I try avoid it but sometimes I find myself thinking this way, anyhow.

I have thought with such vividness about past embarrassing failures that I turned red even though I was sitting in a room alone and the experience happened 35 or 40 years ago.

Even with these truths in mind, however, I still believe it is important to try things. It’s important to step out and take the risk of engaging in pursuits that might fail. God gives us one life here in this earthly realm. This life is meant to be embraced. It is meant to be engaged in. It is meant to be a terrific adventure.

God gave us the extraordinary gift of life expecting us to get going and live it!

We Were Designed To Be Engaged, Challenged, Active And Productive

I read this line yesterday…

“According to a 2005 report in the British Medical Journal, people who retire at fifty-five are 89 percent more likely to die in the ten years after retirement than those who retire at sixty-five. We need to be alive to stay alive, simple as that.” Bold, Diamandis and Kotler

We were designed by God to be engaged, challenged, active and productive, at every stage of life. I do not interpret this data to mean it is unhealthy to retire from a particular job, however, I do interpret it to mean it is unhealthy to retire from life. I think those of us who are followers of Jesus would interpret this to mean that even when we retire from our jobs we will still be alive and purposefully engaged in the work of God’s kingdom.

"Someday In The Future" Needs To Become: "We're Doing It Today!"

As I have gotten older and have a larger percentage of my past upon which to reflect, I have come to realize I have done a little too much “I’m-going-to-do-that-someday-in-the-future” type of thinking in my approach to life.

Today I was listening to a podcast as I was walking and the speaker on the podcast reminded me that sometimes people who do too much “someday-in-the-future” type of thinking never get around to this point: “Okay, let’s go. We’re actually doing it today!:”

I don’t want all of my adventures to be unrealized longings which only exist in my imagination of the future. It is time to write some of them on the schedule and get the plans in motion so they actually happen.

So… ballroom dancing lessons, here we come!!!

(Just kidding, ballroom dancing is not on the “someday-in-the-future” wish list.)