I’m almost 47! 😒

As I stare down the barrel of 50, everything has a new sense of urgency…..

In other words: time never felt so precious.So short. I have to outrun this aging body and try to check off the items on my bucket list in a decade or two.

There’s no time to spare!

It’s alarming to me to look back on my youth and realize how much time I wasted. I know you might be tempted to reassure me, to assert that I didn’t waste anything, that everything ended up meaning something.

Well, I’m sorry to inform you — believe me, I am — that I really, truly did waste time.

You see, I was always waiting for something or someone to get things started. Sure, I was pretty proactive when it came to my writing. I regularly worked on my craft and reached out to magazines and publishers, hoping to catch an opportunity.

But every other part of my life felt confusing and overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t even know I could do or start something. For a good block of my years I’ve wasted it on pursuing dreams or aspirations that quite frankly I don’t even know why they were aspirational goals in the first time.

Life, however, is not a race against others. It’s a personal journey, unique and significant in its own way. Embrace the fact that you are on your own path, with its own set of challenges and triumphs, learning and growth. It doesn’t matter how fast you go or what others are doing. How much you grow, learn, and enjoy along the way matters. Celebrate your achievements, however small they may seem, and embrace your failures as opportunities for learning and growth. Let your journey be driven by your own goals, values, and passions, not by the desire to outdo others. Ultimately, it’s all about running your own race and finding joy in your journey.

I believe we all have greatness from within and the challenge is to spend time enough to discover it. So I’m making this personal declaration today that I’m going to cease the second half of my life and I’m choosing to do it my way!