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Showing posts from December, 2023

Fleeting Light: Thoughts about "50" on the shortest day of the year

  I’ve been told that it’s common during one’s fiftieth year to do a recounting of the life you’ve lived so far. While the big 5-0 is past the halfway point for most of us, it’s a place to check momentum. How has the trip gone? Which turns have been the right ones (or wrong ones)? Is there enough gas in the tank to make it the rest of the way to the “final destination”…and in a way of our choosing? Momentum, at this point, seems to take the place of fuel. If anything, the challenge is to gear down to keep the car from flying down the hill. While not everything our elders told us is gospel, the old folks who say that life starts moving faster at the half-century mark have it right in my book.  Despite the pressures of time, much of this year has been a chance to stand on top of the hill (the one I’ve been told I’m on my way over) and look around. It’s been less about innovation and change than inventory; directly, what’s been done and what’s left to do? 50 is a rare sweet spot in life;