On the eve of my sixtieth birthday, I thought I might put down my thoughts in a poem, but since I prefer poems to rhyme, this does not seem the best time”¦so I will ring a different chime.
What rhymes with 60 anyway?
Age and wisdom are supposed to eventually converge. That hasn’t happened for me yet. I have, however, learned a few things along the way. I thought I would share sixty things I’ve learned but I got tired just thinking about that task. Sixty is too big a number. I am afraid I haven’t learned enough to name sixty things”¦ or if I have, I lack both the patience and the attention span to share them. I won’t even mention the attention span of today’s reader.
I further fear that as I proceed, I will forget the things I have learned and will be obliged to make up some stuff right quick. That would be more like a sixteen-year-old than a sixty-year-old, so I will give you my Sweet Sixteen things to ponder in honor of my 60th.
These nuggets (some may be gold and others chicken but nuggets, nonetheless) are not in any other order than the one I put them in. The reader might think one thing is more important than the other. If you do, feel free to rearrange them to taste. As my Dad used to tell slackers at work, “I didn’t bring you here to raise you.”
He would also say, “Lean on your own dinner.”
But that was Dad and this is my birthday. These are nuggets I have mined with the shovel he left me.
Here we go”¦
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“You can’t rollerskate in a buffalo herd.” This is a lyric older than me. I heard it when I was a boy. Took me a while to learn its meaning and incorporate it (at least occasionally) into my life. I think it means this: Not every activity is appropriate in every situation. Pick your spots.
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“”¦but you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.” That is the next line of the same song. I did come to believe this a long time ago. Happiness is a choice. It won’t choose you; you have to choose it. Or not. If you are waiting for everything to be just right so you can be happy, trust me, the waiting room will not be open long enough.
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“Money talks; bullshit walks” is bullshit. Money does talk, but it tells you lies. It says the one with the money is more important than the ones who don’t have it and want it. It tells you money solves all problems. It does solve plenty”¦and then it replaces them with plenty more. Check out the misery index among the uber-wealthy. They have their base needs met but their baser instincts? Those often drive them to drugs, alcoholism, shady dealings, ungrateful kids, petty “friends”, superficiality, and loneliness.
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The more efficiently you do a thing, the more things you will have to do. Efficiency may be overrated, but do you know what is worse than efficiency? Inefficiency! Complacency. Those two are first cousins to poverty. Pick your poison.
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Words matter. We release them into the atmosphere and they forever alter its DNA. You cannot take them back. Apologizing for ill-spoken words is the right thing to do but really doesn’t help much at all. You cannot unsay it and the person you verbally abused or accosted cannot unhear it. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote in his New Testament epistle, “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19, the Holy Bible).
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The scenic route does not suck. My whole life, I have taken the scenic route. I have been everything but a baker and a cobbler. I got things backward. At 23, I was a pastor. In my thirties, I was fatherless, flailing, and finding my way back from the abyss. I drove a cab. I delivered pizzas. I managed a furniture rental store. I sold automotive upholstery to stubborn moms and pops and their two-bit shops all over west Texas. I got fired for the first time by the old fart who owned that upholstery wholesale business. He always said “pacific” when he meant “specific,” which is stupid, of course, but he was in the catbird seat and I was on my ear. I hustled book covers to elementary schools. I kept reaching for the bottom and when I thought I had found it, fell a little further. I finally regathered myself and became a middle school teacher and then a mold inspector and then an adjuster and, now, the Vice President of Operations. I took the scenic route to this place and this moment. That life does not suck any more than the lives of the “masters of the universe” who have it all together, or tell you that they do. Show me a man who never lost and I will show you a liar”¦who is lost.
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You can make excuses or you can make a difference. You cannot make both.
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Extraordinary only exists because of ordinary. If everything is extraordinary, then nothing is. Most of life is mundane. If you can squeeze life and life lessons from the mundane, you are extraordinary.
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Jade is a shade of green. Jaded is a shade of misery. Jaded people are generally miserable and miserable to be around. I should know. I have been a shade of green. So”¦
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You cannot say “awesome” without “awe”, and “wonderful” has “wonder” as its base. If you lose the wonder of life, do not wonder that your life is not awesome. (I can put this and any other of my self quotes on a poster and ship it to you for a price.)
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Those who fail are not failures and those who lose are not losers”¦unless they are quitters.
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If you are compelled to tell me you are great, I am never going to believe you. Never.
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Your kids have less than a 50% chance of being above average. I think that is right. Checking my math”¦
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All is fair in love and war, but nothing’s fair when love is war.
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If God is God, you do not have to “seek justice” for every wrong done you, nor would you really want to see what that looks like for yourself.
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Because God is God, grace abounds. Receive it. Celebrate it. Extend it. Do not abuse it.
Bonus: You cannot live your entire life in a moment, so don’t try. You can, however, ruin your life in a moment, so try not to.
Thank you to my wonderful family for never losing the wonder of life and for always extending me more than my share of grace. You make me proud. Every day!
Happy birthday!