Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Seven Life Lessons I Have Learned

I just turned 41.

After thinking long and hard about it, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I am past my youth, and am at the doorstep leading into the next stage of my life. Hello mid-life, please welcome your newest member. I should have accepted this a year ago, but denial is such a sweet pill against reality.

Frankly, I don't know why I’ve been so averse to accepting mid-life. I think and feel exactly the same way as I did when I was 18. Well, except for the additional body mass. And the occassional gout attacks. And the occassional instance when I forget what word I should use to say what I mean. And the heightened cynicism. Well, ok… I’m worlds different from when I was 18.

I’ve been told that mid-life is the stage when one blossoms into wisdom, having acquired much life experience and having learned valuable lessons from these experiences. I also read somewhere that many people actually became successful once they reached mid-life, having burned out whatever store of youthful, hormonal zeal they carried with them, and so then can let their wisdom come uncontested to the forefront

I, too, have had my share of lessons from my own store of experiences. Today, I took some time to look back at what 41 years had taught me. Then I made a list of these general concepts, and came up with these seven keys to life, meaning, and the universe.

These concepts, imho, are so important, they apply to just about anything in nature, in life, in business, in relationships – in everything. They are so deceptively simple, I’ve taken them for granted, scarcely noticing that they form the very bedrock of existence (Here’s a word to roll around the tongue: ubiquitous, being present everywhere, at once).

They are:

  1. Evolution
  2. Synergy
  3. Division or Reduction
  4. Equilibrium
  5. Communication
  6. Process
  7. Cycles

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