On Being Sixty

On August 23^rd 2014 I entered into my 60^th year. To be clear, I am 59. I find this both jolting and amazing. 

When I look back to when I was ten and think of the life expectancy of many of my Grandparents generation, it strikes me immediately how fortunate I am to live in a time when health and longevity are so much better than of those times. Both of my Grandfathers died at age 65 of a similar lung condition brought on by the working environment they were exposed to. I look at my life now and I am extremely grateful that I am not only healthy but that my generation in general is in a much better position to face our future. I have just finished my second London Triathlon along with many my age. While I realise that this is not Earth shattering stuff I am happy that I can look forward to what appears at the moment, a long and healthy future ahead of me.

It struck me that in this last year of the decade of my fifties, I should mark it with a yearlong celebration of my life. What could I do, where could I go and what landmarks might I achieve if I put all of my focus towards those goals? I work very hard and I love my job, but I know how easy it is to let that define the person we are. Nothing wrong with that you might say, however I don’t want my life to have been all work and no play.

I am going to write on this blog sixty times and chronicle the next year of my life. I blog because it is the way we do things these days. An online diary, a letter to the world and a way of sharing what is important to me. I think that is why so many people Blog. If it touches one other person, so be it and if not then at least I will have a diary that I hope will inspire my Children to examine their lives and in doing so, live better ones.

I am also creating a list of 60 things I want to do before I am 60. At first glance that does not seem like a lot, but when you think there are only 52 weeks in a year, suddenly that brings the year into focus. I will post the list when it is complete which should be within the next week. Some of the items are quite large and some no so much, but put together they make up a year of doing rather than of talking about. I hope I am left with a wonderful list of achievements on my 60^th birthday and not a list of regrets and could have been.

I hope you will join me with your own list of things to do before your next birthday. Let’s make the world a little better for having spent a year together.

Live Passionately, Ask Why!

Lee