The FINISH Line

When I was a young man, I didn't even ponder whether life was a finite thing, and the thought that it had a beginning and an end was never on my mind.  I did things, as many testosterone-driven youth did, that pushed the limits of mortality "for the fun of it." In middle age I began to understand that sooner or later I, as all other humans, would "shuffle off this mortal coil." The death of parents and in-laws brought the metaphysical concept of death to the realm of reality.  The same goes today when I have lived my biblical three score and ten and outlasted friends and colleagues, some of whom have died at a younger age that I am today. The FINISH line is not only closer, actuarially speaking, but I can see it from here.  You may see it to from where you are standing.

When I write and speak of my own mortality, my loving wife says "You are afraid of death."  I reply that I am not afraid of death itself but I AM AFRAID of dying, as Wayne Dyer would say "With my music still inside me."  Many of us "professionals" spent the first third of our lives being educated to do something; law, medicine, engineering, accounting, or business and finance. The second third, or more, being that professional, 24 hours a day, with all it entails.  The third 3rd (sounds like Mahi Mahi) is supposed to be time to do all those things we had no time to do because we had to compete academically and professionally and an army of people depended on us.   There were homes to buy, kids to raise and tuitions to pay. Now, as in most formulae (a third for parts, a third for labor, a third for profit for example) is is supposed to be the time for self actualization, significance, and spending the accumulated dross, aka  gelt, dinero, plata, or sheckels. I don't think a fishing rod or a golf club is enough.

Even though I have no "need" to conquer another mountain, I listen to and read some of the motivational gurus like Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, and the folks in Success magazine.  There is a common message that says "Find your passion, your mission in life, something that makes you get up in the morning and work unaware of time.  Something that even if you didn't get paid to do it, you love it so much, you would do it for free. Do what you love and you never work a day in your life, and the money will follow."  I don't think I did that with my prior career but regardless, that is the past, this is the present and I am now faced with some finite time to express my passion, whatever it is.  By the way, no matter what your age, so are you.  The "music" inside me is as yet undiscovered.  I know it is not a potpourri of activities, travel, dinners with family and friends, and TV, though those are and have always been an important part of my life.  There is something else with my name on it and I have from now 'til the time I reach the FINISH line to express it.  If I love it so much I would do it for free, and it is something about which I am passionate, and when I do it I lose track of time and am in "flow" then I will have found that music, and though the finish line is still there, I will be too focused on my passion to see it, or at least dwell on it.

We can regret the choices we made in life.  Did we spend too much time in school, in the wrong subject, in the office, in the wrong profession?  That does us no good since the past cannot be changed. If a visible finish line, in the distance but drawing closer, does not move me, or us, to do that thing we always wanted to do but did not have the time or the money to do, then there is no hope.  It is a decision to be made, a passion to be discovered ("What did we love to do as kids before the responsibilities of life were thrust upon us?" might be a place to start. ) and an action step to be taken.  As Henry David Thoreau said..."Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you've imagined." It's not too late.