As I head into my 40’s this year, I find myself seriously looking at my life. Now, I know that this is not unusual for someone my age, in fact it is probably the most normal thing about my life lately.
It’s funny how things change. How we change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Our lives, every moment, every encounter, every thought is a fork in a road to our future. Not just the big ones, but all of them. They are the threads to the tapestry in our lives.
So, over the next seven months, as I gradually grow closer to the big 40, I decided to begin to document my last hurrah for my 30’s and my next series of hurrah’s for my 40’s.
I am determined to stretch myself. I am committed to stepping outside of normal, to experience things beyond the boundaries. I am committed to living my life on the perimeter going forward.
What does that mean? Living life on the perimeter?
Well, I was listening to a podcast recently and the person was talking about how to eat better, spend less money, etc. She made a statement….”shop the perimeter of the grocery store”. That was it, that one statement. I was ‘listening’ to this podcast while doing other things, but that one statement stopped me dead in my tracks. I began to think, how could we live like that? If you look at a grocery store, the ‘good’ stuff is all on the perimeter. You find fruit, veggies, meat, dairy, bread…all on the perimeter. When you peruse the aisles, you begin to see the processed junk, salty, fatty, junk food. You find the food that may fill you up for awhile, but is lacking in nutrients, lacking in the long lasting nutrition you need.
Well, I was listening to a podcast recently and the person was talking about how to eat better, spend less money, etc. She made a statement….”shop the perimeter of the grocery store”. That was it, that one statement. I was ‘listening’ to this podcast while doing other things, but that one statement stopped me dead in my tracks. I began to think, how could we live like that? If you look at a grocery store, the ‘good’ stuff is all on the perimeter. You find fruit, veggies, meat, dairy, bread…all on the perimeter. When you peruse the aisles, you begin to see the processed junk, salty, fatty, junk food. You find the food that may fill you up for awhile, but is lacking in nutrients, lacking in the long lasting nutrition you need.
How often in our lives we spend precious time perusing the aisles. We fill our lives with the junk, the fatty stuff that lacks the lasting nutrition, knowledge, and relationships that means so much. We spend our time, which is the most valuable resource, on….junk. Time is such a finite resource. We cannot create it. We cannot relive it. We cannot stop it. Once we spend it, it’s gone. Yet it is the one thing we tend to spend our lives wasting like we will always have more, another moment, another year, another decade.
So, as I head towards my 40th birthday, which is on December 20th, I will document my reality. I will document my thoughts, feelings, emotions, milestones, and growth as I close out one decade and head into another.
I think we started our blogs for the same reason. I love yours. It seems that while started with this intention and then really went fairly off track, you really are writing about what I wanted to do. I can't wait to read more!
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