Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and look back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

Dalai Lama

The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.

Ernest Hemingway

To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion.

Albert Camus

As of this post I am 33 years and 10 months past my personally expected final credits reel. I have seen Death’s door multiple times. That door is something that sticks with me while at the same time my mind keeps wanting to look the other way, any other way. I believe that I have indeed lived a long life. When does a life become very long? The ‘very long’ in a very long life sounds as if it means something akin to past the point where we no longer live amongst our peers. How does a person evaluate that situation?

We’ve just begun another year and I haven’t yet finished tallying the last. I have stopped counting my fallen fellows on the game board. I bow my head at their passing and wish their soul good journeying and safe landings wherever they might go. Because while I may have seen Death’s door, I have no idea what the foyer looks like and I am in no rush to investigate just yet. I will take today and all that it includes. The sun rose, the birds awakened and so did I. While I may have gained some aches and lost some senses, others my age feel the years much more.

If we live our lives how we choose there’s not much of a bucket list left. I completed my list before I was 50. That’s what happens when we assume that there’s no time left and try to soak life up before it’s too late; we sometimes end up with extra time. It’s taken me nearly a decade to realize that I don’t have to have new goals to replace the ones fulfilled. If there is something that interests me I do not have to have a goal. I am free of the career path requirements. I wish I would have understood the folly of that requirement earlier. I have had many careers that turned into jobs as industries came and went.

At this new year’s beginning don’t put off what you really want to do for what you should do. Do what’s right for your heart and soul today. It will serve you better in the long run if you’re true to yourself. It took me way too long to realize that the world would have us all racing like greyhounds after false rewards that we can never catch. That’s by design and not for our benefit. If we might live very long lives wouldn’t it be better to live them as ourselves?