When I started this blog, the main point was to get my procrastinating self to commit to achieving goals that had mostly been “someday I’d like to…”. Although I only got through 32 listed goals over the three years, I feel like I have achieved so much more than putting a check mark in a bucket list box. First thing I have to do is thank all of you amazing people who quickly jumped on board to join me (or teach me) for many of these experiences. I’d like to say I’ve been lucky to have surrounded myself with incredible friends, family and mentors…but I think lucky is the wrong word. At fifty, I can look back and see that the luck part is being put in the right place at the right time to meet the people who become close to you. However, it takes real work to engage either by invitation or initiation with someone to build those deep lasting connections. The love and gratitude I have for all of you who have invited me or accepted my invitation is immeasurable. Thank you. As the saying goes “it’s the journey not the destination” and I’d agree that was the case with most of the goals I completed. Several of the adventures I got to share with Alex (my daughter in case you’re new to the blog), which made them extra special. As she is moving ever closer to creating her own life, it has been especially meaningful to have her come along and sometimes encourage me to try things I might not have done, and other times be the voice of reason to keep me from doing something stupid! My list had some “stretch goals”, but I also created the list knowing I had three years to get done what I could get done. I would encourage anyone who feels like they’ve gotten in a rut or find themselves constantly putting things they’d like to do on hold, to make their own list. I did consider short-term feasibility, geographically, financially and physically and that will be so very different for everyone. But I also found that just by writing the list and putting it out there on the interwebs, things started to fall into place. It may sound like a cheap cliché, but you’ve got to put it out there for it to happen. Whether that is writing a list, starting a blog or just telling your best friends, if you don’t share your goals they are much less likely to happen. So today I have officially been a guest on Mother Earth for 50 years, and I do think I’ve learned a few things along the way. Baz Luhrmann’s – Wear Sunscreen does a great job of relaying much of the advice I would give, but in a much more creative way. I think the one thing I would add is don’t go through life doing what you think others expect you to do, even if they explicitly tell you what they think you should do, even if they are saying it from a place of love and protection. If you feel a passion, a calling or even just a wild-assed hair to do something different, trust yourself. You may end up falling on your face, or having to go with Plan B, C or D, but at least you tried, and you put yourself out there and you won’t spend the end of your life wondering “what could have been”. With that thought I will end this with a poem that has been my favorite since middle school, and perhaps it has shaped my life much more than I thought. Thank you Robert Frost:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
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