It's my 48th birthday, here are 4.8 connection lessons I’ve learned through mid-life.
Hello you wonderful human.
It’s my 48th birthday today, and while there’s a lot of silver in my hair, I still feel like I’m 25 years old.
I saw somewhere that it’s a good idea to create content marking your birthday with a piece of wisdom for every year of life. Who has time to come up with 48 hints and tips and who would sit through 48 hints and tips?
So, I’ve devised 4.8 hints and tips instead.
Know and live your values
This is my most important lesson. It can also be rephrased as ‘Know who you are and then be who you are’.
You have values and you live according to them even if you don’t know them.
Going through the process of uncovering and identifying my values was the greatest gift I could give myself as I entered mid-life.
Living my values is a gift with the same value as knowing my values. When I combined those two gifts of knowing and then living my values, well, suddenly I began to live my life.
It takes courage to be unapologetically and unashamedly me as I am in that moment. But that is what’s required for me to be in the only place that connection ever happens: the present.
I could make a comment here about the present being a gift, but that’s been done and feels a bit cheap and obvious to make it.
There is always time for who and what is important
I give this advice all the time. I also find it to be an ongoing challenge to apply in my own life.
I’m almost always busy. HUMANS:CONNECTING is a lean social startup. We have big, bold dreams and ambitions for it. There’s always so much to do and little time and money to do it in.
For all that, I am also a human with connection needs.
I need to spend time with those most important to me: our kids, Jeff and close friends.
I need to be part of my community.
I also need to spend time connecting with myself, whether that’s sitting still each day for at least 15 minutes, working out, eating, sleeping or playing Flight Simulator.
There is ALWAYS time for who and what is important to me, and this includes time for me, too.
What I’m looking for is almost always right in front of me
This advice applies to searching for something in the second drawer in the kitchen (where the utensils live), the bottle of Tabasco in the fridge door or the screwdriver in the toolbox as much as it does in looking for what’s important in life.
What I’m looking for is usually right in front of my eyes, but I’m so consumed with looking for it that I cannot see it.
Let it go
I’ve confessed that I’m a reforming control-seeking enthusiast in this article, and ‘let it go’ is one of the biggest pieces of advice that I’m continually practicing. It remains a frustrating piece of advice to receive – whether within myself or from outside – but it’s almost always right.
I need to let it go and surrender to what is, not what I want to be.
.8. Leave room for the magic
This advice is still a work in progress for me, hence it’s the .8 of a tip.
For all the plans, goals, strategies, theories of change, impact statements, value propositions and all the other things I can surround myself with, I need to keep room for the magical, unexpected things to happen.
Indeed, some of the most amazing connections and opportunities that have happened over the past few years have come from seemingly out of the blue. Magic, indeed.
What I’m celebrating today
Today, I’m celebrating
that I have a loving partner, loving kids and loving friends
that I get to be of meaningful service for other humans and I get to be me when I do so
that I remain curious about learning who I am and then putting me into the world
that I am worthy of love and belonging, today and always
that I remain fit, strong and healthy
my gloriously imperfect awesomeness by going to the supermarket for the weekly shop and then spending time with Jeff and the kids with a deeper appreciation of what makes me, well, me.
Let’s end your loneliness
Did any of those 4.8 hints and tips land for you? If so, which one?
What was your response? Is your response an invitation to get curious about how you could apply the advice in your life?
That’s it for this post
We’ll be publishing more ad hoc articles from now on. Subscribing to our mailing list is the only way that you won’t miss any content. You’ll get an email from me each week or when there’s something new for you. And you can unsubscribe any time if you’re not feeling it anymore: we’ll still think you’re amazing.
Until next time, be awesomely you.
~ Phil
Important:
All views expressed above are the author’s and are intended to inform, support, challenge and inspire you to consider the issue of loneliness and increase awareness of the need for authentic connection with your self, with those most important to you and your communities as an antidote to loneliness. Unless otherwise declared, the author is not a licensed mental health professional and these words are not intended to be crisis support. If you’re in crisis, this page has some links for immediate support for where you may be in the world.
If you’re in crisis, please don’t wait. Get support now.
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