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Yesterday my coworkers redecorated my office. Pictures
in this blog entry are photos of their work. Strangely enough, I found myself
quite appreciative of their act of vandalism. 
Today is my 40th birthday. Like most other days,
I started by walking the dog and making a To-Do list. However, today’s list
has a special item:
- Decide whether to have a mid-life crisis or not.
I’ll confess I am not entirely thrilled about being 40. It
doesn’t seem that long ago that 40 seemed far away. Now that it’s here, I
realize that it’s not what I expected. I thought my life at 40 would be
different.
Many who know me would assert that I have nothing to
complain about. And they would be correct. My life has been filled with
blessings of all kinds, for which I am truly thankful. I am a published
author. Most would consider me financially successful. I am in a career where
I enjoy my work.
But still…
As the old saying goes, nobody lies on their deathbed
wishing they had spent more time at the office.
Like most everybody else, when I was 30 I looked ahead ten
years and formed a picture in my mind. My life today doesn’t match that
picture very well. Examples:
- I thought by now I would be more solid in the quality of
my relationships with my loved ones and in the practice of my faith. - I thought by now I would be a better guitar player.
- There’s a messy pile in my study that has been there for
ten years. (Yes, we moved six years ago. The heap moved too.) I thought
it would be cleaned up by now. - I always assumed that by 40 I would have learned to
exercise regularly and stop eating junk food.
I go could on. And on. But you get the idea.
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I am tempted to think about my regrets, the places where I
took a wrong turn, the places where I would have made a smarter choice if I
knew then what I know now.
But this whole line of thinking doesn’t seem at all
conducive to good mental health, so today I will choose to focus on two things
which seem more constructive:
1. Tapestry
One of my favorite Star Trek episodes is called Tapestry.
It is the story of someone given a chance to re-live a pivotal moment in his
youth so that he can avoid making the unwise choice he made the first time.
But it turns out that his reckless moment was a critical ingredient in his
later successes.
Today I remind myself that there are no do-overs, and I’m
not sure I would want one anyway. For every mistake I have made, there were negative
consequences and positive lessons. I can’t expect to avoid the former and keep
the latter. They come together as an inseparable package.
2. Life Calculus.
Back in 2003 I wrote an article called Career Calculus. In a
nutshell, it says that at any given moment in your career, what you know is far
less important than whether you are learning.
Today I remind myself that the same principle applies in
life. I am confident in my first derivative. Whatever I am today, I think I
will be a better person tomorrow.
So if I’m still blogging when I’m 50, I expect I will be
able to report progress on some of the items mentioned above.
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And just to be clear, if that heap of junk on the floor of
my study is still there, it will be larger than it is now, and I plan to report
that as progress.
http://software.ericsink.com/entries/Life_Calculus.html
