Birthdays & Living in the Moment

Tonight we celebrated Dad's birthday with family friends. He was 79 on Tuesday. He may not be at his peak, but he doesn't really see it. He takes both morning and afternoon naps, but if you ask him if he's tired, he would answer "no."

As children, we are always looking forward. I once interviewed a friend's little sister for a college class. Ellen was 8 at the time and, when asked what age should would pick (if she could choose how old to be), she wanted to be 10-- because Evan (her older brother) was 10 and was allowed to do things that she could not do. When we're 8, we want to be 10. When we're 13, we want to be 16. When we're 16, we want to be 18. Or, we just say we "want to be grown up." When pressed for a reason, it's usually because we think that people who are the desired age have privileges that we do not enjoy.

As adults, we look back at our youth and sometimes wish that we could relive those years. I can remember being 30'ish and somewhat wistful about being 16. At 30, I had responsibilities. But 16 seemed ideal. At 16, I was old enough to have most of the "important" privileges enjoyed by adults. "School" was my job and I was pretty good at it. At the same time, I didn't have to worry about how to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and clothes on my back. I could remember how fun it was to be sixteen-- one of the better years of my life!

Not long thereafter, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. That's a story for another day. The point here is that, while the circumstances were slightly different, I was put into a situation that was somewhat comparable to being 16. My insurance coverage took care of most of my medical bills and guaranteed some degree of income during that time. I still had a car, even if I was too sick to drive it. My family helped to care for me and got me to and from doctor visits and chemotherapy. There were lots of positive things to come out of the experience. The lesson I learned was that every time in our lives brings both blessings and challenges. As I dealt with the challenge of cancer, I saw parallels between then and that time I thought was so perfect.

At 16, I realized that much of my time was spent worrying that I wasn't good enough. I did well at school. I was close enough to satisfy my ambition, but far enough away to still worry about it. I had friends, but worried about whether people liked me. My clothes weren't rags, but I worried that they weren't right. Turns out that, for all of the highlights, there were some lowlights as well.

Superheroes live in the moment. Looking backward is like wearing blinders-- we ignore all of the wonderful things going on around us and can't enjoy being part of them. Looking too far into the future is clearly fantasyland-- nothing has happened yet. If we ever hope to turn those fantasies into a reality, we have to live in the moment. There are things that must be done today to prepare ourselves, to lay the foundation necessary to create the life we hope to live. Dreams help us to envision the future we want to have. But dreams can never replace the preparatory steps that will lead us to the fulfillment of those dreams.