On Birthdays..... Sort of

One of my favorite people, my sister Maggie, turns 24 this week.  During her life, Maggie has made living look simple. She has friends who love her, a valuable degree, a boyfriend who looks at her like he won the lottery, and she got a job she that she likes right out of college. Make no mistake, my sister accomplished all of this by working harder than most people on the planet—I wish I was born with her innate drive, and had developed the sense of pride she has in everything she does. She is truly admirable. Her upcoming change of age has me thinking about what birthdays mean.

As most of my friends know, back in November I was full of dread at the thought of turning 23, because I was feeling so behind. Not behind Maggie, she has never allowed me to use that as an excuse for a pity party, but behind what I thought I would be. I had not finished school, nobody was in love, and I was still clueless as to what I wanted to do with my life. Nine and a half months later, nothing has changed significantly. I still have no degree, no boyfriend and no real plan. Cheery, huh?

I have learned however that I am not alone in my embarrassment. A substantial number of my twenty-something friends feel like their goals are slipping away, too. I think this is because not many people have the gift my sister has.  She has always recognized the amount of work it takes to do well, and considered it a positive thing. Dreaming is unexplainably important, but it’s worthless if you don’t put in the day to day effort to melt them into reality. Do not misunderstand me, I’m trying to put in that work and I KNOW my friends are also. The trouble is we find no or little joy in the journey. Most of us see the ending and desire to skip to it. We find the beginning and middle to be just a necessary evil. People who make life look simple, look for the fun in getting there (“there”, of course being wherever they want to be). We must embrace each birthday. Aging joyfully is the only way will get whatever ever year it’ll be when we’ve finally done it. We must not look at each year and dwell on whatever we didn’t do, but focus on what we must do next. The bottom line is, life is so challenging that the only way one will get through it smiling is to love a challenge.  The great part is, a person can go to bed one day hating whatever work lay ahead of him and wake-up in the morning determined to find the pleasure in it.  We all make that choice. As long as most days we decide to enjoy those obstacles, we will be okay.   Every birthday will be happier than the last.

I hope.