Fifty. That’s half a century. What do I say to thyself?
I can only smile as I am filled with warmth of joy and found peace.
I haven’t done so bad for myself. I have served well. Honestly. To look in the mirror without fear of the eyes that look back but rather smile- the soul is good.
My memory serves of that somewhat mythical woman in my mind, the oldest in a village to whom all turn to, not just for wisdom, but truth. Her hair is shiny silver with a length beyond her waistline. Her words are few, but heard when spoken.
Perhaps I have seen this in a dream or a movie where she sits upon the ground and just looks at me.
I’m convinced this woman, this silvery-haired silent figure, symbolizes my desired level of certainty and wisdom.
You’d think I’d feel to be pretty close by now. Here, to have arrived at fifty years, I feel as if I’m still a child looking up at that one lady in my head. Still, seemingly so far from such power in the eyes. The eyes of full knowing.
That wisdom, that understanding, I feel to only have begun reaching; that acceptance of trustworthy-given status that what I know, all that I know, is true.
I laugh and think, ‘Just another fifty more and perhaps., I will truly… know.’
While I have just started to acquire truth and clarity, I am grateful to see myself heading in the right direction of growth and development.
I feel as if so long ago, like a tree sprout, someone had taken the time to place sticks around me so that I would not falter, but, instead, grow sturdy and strong so that my branches would eventually blossom with fruits for many to be satiated of their nutrients.
I feel to be growing as that strong tree. I am grateful.
While still settling into grounded comfort, what is fifty years to one whose roots have only to grip into the soil as if not so long ago?
What is fifty years to a tree that seems to just be getting better at how not to be so easily blown by the wind or taken down?
In terms of such growth, I feel to have just entered into the phase of maturation where a village would even see potential in me to one day lead; a forest could look at me and perhaps now think I am one to preserve and not cut down.
While growing and solidifying, young and vulnerable, a part of me still feels to be.
I have learned some, but I know each day, as I have done for the first fifty years, I ache to grasp for more.
Undoubtedly so many lessons to condense, here is what my growing progress has acquired in random reflective order:
- Mediocrity is a silent and slow infiltration of one’s heart, mind, body, and spirit. Those to stand out are those who cannot accept to accept what others accept to be accepted. (Yes. I purposely wrote that in that manner.)
- Whether you think to be higher, mediocrity is wanting to be better than the person to the next or just as good. Such a vast amount of individuals so concerned of comparing themselves to other’s limits that they actually use such perceived limitations as their marker to reach or just be a little above.
- The actual limit is what you set. Setting a limit in your head to reach and once reached, the only other next challenge to suggest is, ‘Just one more.’ When asked how many sit-ups he does, Muhammad Ali responded that he starts counting when it starts to hurt. Still, he didn’t say how much more he would do after that.
- Belief is attitude protruded. Before you walk into a room, you must know where you stand. No money or riches can buy dignity and self respect. You can assimilate to affiliate but how does one not sell their soul to those around trying to own it? You don’t.
- Attack one’s actions, not self. That action is what needs to be corrected for the self to grow. It is one’s spirit serving darkness or light. You call one’s actions for what it is to help one see it as well. You give them chance to take it or leave it. Their choices are not up to you. Your choice to stay or walk away thereafter is.
- Innocence does not equate to chosen ignorance. Innocence knows not. One who simply chooses not to know, to grasp, to understand, has no hunger for betterment of self. When one opens no doors for growth, one takes comfort in the bliss of ignorance. Then, ignorant one chooses to be.
- Consider your source for advice. If what one says is not proven true, noble, right, pure, lovely, or admirable—anything not excellent or praiseworthy, and you accept any of such to believe or act upon, you are the bigger fool than the fool who you just made to feel wiser than you.
- You reap all of what you sow. Even if it wasn’t you who sowed the seeds but you helped in the reaping, then you also take in on all of what will be served upon the harvest. What you gather upon the days of harvest is yours to eat up and digest.
- You are those around you. Change your surroundings or change you. Change you and your surroundings most likely will change, too. Have no concern for those who choose not your surroundings. If your surroundings are good, you are good.
- Raise the value of how much it would take to live in your mind to where you and only a few can enter. While knowledge for the greater good is priceless, those carrying around garbage for you to take in is at your greatest expense.
- You get conquered by your circumstances or conquer them. If you choose to be a victim, prepare to be victimized. However, don’t complain or blame others for your chosen character. Victors blame themselves for their own falls.
- It’s not your job to change people. They would have already changed. Changing for the better or the worse is everyone’s daily option. Best you can do is inspire others by becoming a better version of yourself each day.
- Look far enough, it was your fault. You are to blame for letting someone into your heart, mind, body, or spirit. Each of those are your doors. Even at a time one chooses to barge in, you can fight to get them or you out. The noise you make is yours to answer for upon complaint.
- Get better at knowing how much of you to give. Don’t exhaust yourself at trying to be accepted or praised by others. When you give freely of you, do it with joy. If not seemingly enough for others, you can wholeheartedly respond before walking away, “You are welcome.”
- Hurt like hell so you desire not to go back to the same pain. If you keep hurting the same, the truth suggests that you enjoyed the pain or that you didn’t get enough of it. Hurt me once, shame on you. Hurt me twice, shame on me. It’s that simple.
- Forgiveness does not mean a welcome to repeat. Forgiveness is letting go so you don’t have to carry the burden any longer. You hold onto the load you are willing to carry.
- Keep your ears open but with all your senses aware. This way, you don’t have to respond to everything you hear. However, you should be ready for when your senses tell you it’s time to react.
- Be on the side of truth. The truth finds its way to reveal itself. When it does, all those in opposition will be exposed. The side you stand on will also reveal you. Where the truth prevails, you hope to be standing.
- Listen to those you respect and love. Listen even to those who you ache to respect and love you back. When the time comes to pull the weeds out, you will know for sure who are most sensible to keep around.
- Speak from your heart. By no means does this suggest lying to make others feel good about themselves. The truth must hurt at times so if people around don’t like the pain they are feeling from your words, they will do something about it.
- See things for what they are, not what you want them to be. It is not that you shouldn’t try and find the best in everyone. Do that. Just don’t choose to be blind if you see a train coming.
- Taste the sweetness along with the salty, spicy, burnt, and bitter. Don’t pretend they are all the same. Don’t pretend to like something you find unbearable. Don’t keep eating the same foods you find are not to your liking.
- Feel the energy around you. If you can’t stand the heat, get out the kitchen. Don’t stick around to see the place burn down. Know when something doesn’t feel right and excuse yourself. You owe no one an explanation.
- Be grateful for the bad, too. No pain, no gain. That cliche most likely will generationally stick. How do you know what to avoid without infliction? Be thankful for when bad occurs so that you become better at knowing how to dodge them.
- You are nothing special to those who sell gimmicks. You not buying doesn’t mean the gimmicks won’t stop trying to sell to those who will buy.
- Seek truth. If you suggest to believe everything you hear, you must take into account in the end that you are to blame for whatever you believed. Anyone can tell you anything. For you to do your own research is the best practice to finding the truth and nothing but the truth.
- Work out. Walk, jog, run, lift, squat, pull, push… work out the heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit so each are well and ready to work for you when beckoned. Fill yourself with oxygen necessary to function in a manner where you aren’t dragging to your next step but rather you find yourself ahead of everyone else, leading the way to inspire.
- Love well. Don’t love sick. Be alert and healthy in loving. Stop prescribing yourself with love as if it is medication that keeps you numb and addicted. Handle love in a manner that serves you in the direction that gets you going and thriving.
- Sleep. Work hard but sleep hard, too. In fact, you work hard enough,your heart, mind, body, and spirit will plead for rest. So, rest. Soldiers within you work best with regulated rest. Deprivation of rest is like asking your soldiers to stand up straight and be ready when all they want to do is curl up under a blanket and snooze.
- Control yourself. You can’t control others. That’s not your business. If you can’t control yourself, you have no business trying to control others. You don’t want to be that person giving advice when your own history speaks of never finishing or never attaining.
- Be real. Fake it until you make it only works until you are asked to drive a forklift to lock up pallets amongst a crowd. Once someone sees you as a fake, you will be categorized opposite of being genuine.
- Get real. If you aren’t certain of how to be real, get to where real is. It will be difficult to learn from what is real when with those that stand to be fake.
- Don’t expect from others what you can’t expect from yourself. Grace and mercy goes a long way in dealing with others around you to help take away any notion that everyone should give you what you want and need even if you can’t provide the same for yourself.
- Don’t feel guilty. Give your all to every moment and time so you don’t feel guilty for when someone reacts as if it’s not enough. As long as you know you genuinely gave your truth and your time, walk away as if you washed your hands clean with no remorse.
- Laugh hard. For goodness sake, even a fake laugh is good for the heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit than not laughing at all. You can cry hard when that’s real, too, as long as you remember that laughing is the remedy.
- Live well. It doesn’t make sense to say when one grows up, they will choose not to live well. Why is it that others seem to go in that direction once grown? Why, when under your control, should you?
- Talk trivial, too. Not every moment has to be serious. Reserve serious moments for when they matter. To be able to think within, all the time, you have to allow people around you to talk of trivial things. That way, you can nod along as if listening to every word said while inside, you are delving into how to merge atoms in the quantum world with microchips in the AI world.
- Seek those who show strength, not weakness. If you were powered by energy and you could choose which direction to move toward, the weak or strong, which side you choose suggests your desire and self belief.
- Aspire to be better, not perfect. Nobody is perfect, but what is wrong with striving to be excellent at everything tried and true? Keep smiling and laughing to yourself upon your stumbles. Eventually, as you refine, your polished look will look more… polished.
- Stop believing lies. You believe those lies because you can’t handle the truth. That’s the truth. If you know the truth, you simply don’t believe the lies. You are only at sole fault for going along with all the lies. Lies make better stories, but the truth make better character.
- I arrived to understanding I am my closest friend. Aside from my husband and children, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have been my greatest friends, no other. Of those, I know to be closest to me when around them. When around others, I feel to be farthest from myself.
- I strive to inspire others right. Know right. Do right. Be right. Act right. Everything that is good of me is what will be what I can give and offer to others. In the same, anything that is not right, why would I expect to inspire in such a way?
- I keep achieving. Never stop. Those who stop really never got started or simply quit. Hang around those who convince one another they are enough today and you will find yourself comfortable of being in the same enough tomorrow and the next.
- I keep growing. I am but a bud that has just bloomed, I tell you. There is so much more of me to open up that I giggle to think even I am excited to see what will happen when I do.
- I keep reflecting. I feel there is nothing worse for me to choose as I continue to move forward where I don’t take moments to reflect on my growth and development. I am but that early stages of a tree where my branches must be pruned to become the best of me.
- I push to step out of my circle. While I know where home is, I must push out of my comfort at times to see what is out there for me to still learn and understand. There is so much more to know.
- I give my all within each moment. While I say I am a 100 or none, I suggest that as in at the moment by battery is at 80%, I am still giving a hundred. This is why I choose wisely of what to take part in.
- I have learned people who think you need them hope to see you beg. Rejection is not for me nor should it be for anyone who has done more good than not. My silence to anyone is my message I never needed them.
- I, therefore, am not afraid to lose anyone. This is not losing one who has strongly stood by your side for those are a rarity and would crush anyone if lost. Losing someone who leaves your side, however- those you just let go.
- I have, thus, learned to love myself. The world has certainly and countlessly tried to get me to forget. If I have no love for myself, I cannot wholeheartedly love those who have given me their genuine love, loyalty, and devotion. I must love myself to have love to give for them.
Thanks to the movie, “What About Bob?”, my heart, my mind, my body, and my spirit have all learned to repeat in the sub-conscience, “I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful.”
I tell you, the world attacks at times when you least expect it. Hang around a few years, especially as you continue to climb, things get thrown at you from different angles- behind you, above you, beside you, from those in front of you while you feel simultaneously pushed and tugged even from beneath you.
You could be walking in peace. You don’t need to even look around to feel others detest whatever kind of peace you think to carry.
You could be humming a quiet tune. You all of a sudden get this notion even at your quietest joy, the sounds you make are too loud for others to stand.
Honestly, I have laughed to myself (while my heart, mind, body, and spirit chant to me, “I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful.”) to see glares of dislike even as just the presence alone stands against a wall, doing absolutely nothing to get in anyone’s way. Somehow, you are still noted, disliked even in the least intrusive space.
I relax. I breathe. I let go.
Dearest Anne Salve,
You were the present of time the moment you were born. Handle you with care. Sometimes we take one step forward but then, take ten steps back. You just keep focusing to take more steps forward than back when you can.
Take no applications from those trying to rent out your thoughts. Reserve that for those worthy to be invited.
You keep to the sun and let the shadows fall behind.
Be good. Be great. Be wonderful.
Happy 50th birthday, you golden one!
