Turning 40 - It’s All About the Journey

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Are You Turning 40 and Looking for a Profound Life Change?

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I was born February 21st, 1968, and tomorrow I will become forty years of age.

I don’t know if I feel forty. Half of my soul inside seems still youthful, yet the other half feels ancient from what I’ve witnessed so far in my life. People like me who have been born in the late 60’s and early 70’s have seen so much change in just four decades: computers becoming household items, the fall of the U.S.S.R., and the horror of 9-11 just to name a few incredible and sometimes terrifying world events. We were children in the 70’s and 80’s, assured of a bright future, making wishes on what we wanted to be when we grew up. And then we did grow up, and for many of us our childhood dreams did not come true. We had to settle for working random and temporary jobs compared to our forebears, mostly just to survive in this society whose God is money, not compassion.

I see the world today in my last few hours of being thirty-nine years old and I am worried. Am I going into my forties just to witness yet more government control, our freedoms stripped away in order to “protect us”? Yesterday while I was on the bus I noticed three ceiling cameras monitoring the passengers. It may not seem to be an omen to some, but I have to ask: how invasive will such “security” cameras become to our privacy? Has humanity made true and healthy progress, or are we backsliding into a controlled society worse than the Nazi regime?

We live in a civilization that should be based on compassion but is most assuredly not, and we are run by power-hungry psychopaths. This is not a world into which I feel comfortable growing older; already I feel nostalgia for a past that is gone and great uneasiness towards a future that may not be kind to those of our generation, or anyone of any age.

I have regrets, mistakes I have made and people I have made unhappy. I miss my estranged son each and every day, and I have deep regret in my soul that I haven’t been a father to him. I wish his mother and I could have stayed together, been happy together, but we were just too different and were not good for one another. And I worry very, very much for my son when I see the world today; will his generation inherit a collapsed economy, harsh government control, and even possibly riots for the necessities of life?

Yet there is much in the future to hope for: more and more people are waking up to this grim reality around them and are now working for real change. Many of us of the “Generation X” era are much wiser now, having grown up in a world that often makes us pay heavily for mistakes; but many of us have not learned much at all, being distracted by popular media and choosing entertainment over education. I hope with great sincerity we can use what we have learned to help each other, not just to benefit ourselves individually.

Like many in my generation, I have seen many of my older relatives pass away and I have suffered the loss of a parent. So many of my uncles and aunts are gone now to that bastard Reaper, as well as my father; I remember as a child the family get-togethers every year for Christmas, Easter, New Year’s… but those family gatherings are gone now too, since so much of my family has aged and died.

How many years do we have left now, us in our late thirties and early forties? We are feeling the energy and vigor of our youth fading away each day, no longer do we take our health for granted like many of us did as teen-agers. In two more decades or so we’ll become geriatrics, how’s that for a thought?

We still have time but no longer can we afford to waste it. Every day we grow older, the more we must appreciate the wonder and miracle of Life. Every one of us is a unique creation given the opportunity each and every day to bring love or hate into this world. Just think: in an infinite Universe in a sea of infinite probability we were born; now we’re growing older, no longer do we have the seeming immortality of youth. Time now to us in our generation is a gift to be cherished, not wasted.

So happy birthday to me, I guess. Tomorrow I’ll be forty, I still can’t believe it. But I do believe in and thank whatever Divine Spirit is out there for the family and friendships I have, and for the shelter over my head and the food in my belly. I wish Life would never end, but I know one day it will, so I’ll try my best to make each passing moment a little bit of forever.

SlackerDan is a writer specializing in web content and comedy. He owns the coolest URL on the ‘Net, www.internetslacker.com. If you are a webmaster and/or editor searching for excellent material, please contact him at internet.slacker@gmail.com .