Is your birthday a number, a cause for celebration, a reason to despair? Are you getting older and wiser, or just older?
Perhaps a little of each…
As my birthday fast approaches, I become another number. (I’ll be the title of a Beatles song 
).
With that vantage point, I’d like to re-iterate a couple of things I’ve seen…
You get older by passing the time.
You get wiser by using the time.
On a very simple level, if you haven’t died, you’re passing time.
You can be 20, 30, 40, 50, or any age, and just pass time. Not do things that challenge you. Not do things that make you wiser. It can be because of fear, comfort, not focusing, not knowing what to do or any of a thousand reasons. But. And this can be a very big BUT…
Passing time begins to gnaw at you. You know there is more, and it begins to feel that what you are missing is important. Maybe very important.
If you have felt this way, consider a once a year recap and refocusing as a tool…
Here are three small steps to consider on your birthday to begin using your time more wisely.
The first step is to think about the 365 days that have passed. You don’t have to be specific, just spend ten – fifteen minutes to think about it. Write down what you have liked doing, what has made you feel good, what has made you feel bad and where your efforts have yielded the greatest results.
The second step is to think about the 365 days that are coming. Again, just spend ten – fifteen minutes to think about it. Write down what you want to do, what would make you feel good, what you want to avoid and where you want to put your efforts.
The third step, especially as your ripen, is to stay open to the new – the potentials of life. It’s very easy to settle for, or repeat, your life’s accomplishments or failures. It helps pass the time, but it won’t make you wiser.
These steps are not a formal planning process. They’re ways of more fully using your birthday to move forward.
Writing these things out on your birthday isn’t getting them done, but it’s a step. It’s a reminder…
Will doing it create overnight change? An epiphany? Maybe.
Will doing it call for more steps? Steps to take throughout the year. More likely. But what do you have to loose? Twenty minutes or a half-hour?
Why not try it on your next birthday? (If you want to do it now, and it isn’t your birthday – that works too.)
It can open up or re-focus on the steps that need to be taken. Even the uncomfortable and unclear steps.
I guess it’s like the advice to change batteries on a smoke alarm twice a year (at spring forward and fall back). It might not be needed, but it might just save your life.
Reviewing steps taken, and then targeting your next steps can help – one step, one birthday, at a time.
When’s your birthday?
Do you use it, as well as celebrate it?
Are you approaching a number with special meanings?
And of course …
“Will you still need me, will you still please me” with your stories and spreading the word?
Have Fun,
Jim
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Tags: new beginnings, time, wisdom
