I stopped trying to prove something and learned to just be, which sounds easy, but was not, for this multitasker extraordinaire. Before I turned 50, I seldom could enjoy a television show without simultaneously browsing a magazine, doing needlepoint, or examining my to-do list. I would be lying to say it is easy for me now to simply be in the present, although I have made much progress. I know that awareness of an issue is the first step toward changing something.
I stopped judging myself so harshly. In our society, and as humans, we are conditioned to judge. We learn survival techniques by avoiding danger, for instance. We hire people and purchase goods and services based on how we believe they will perform, given what information is available to us, including past experience. But the level of self-hatred I yoked myself with was debilitating and served no good purpose. I consciously shed it every day.
I believe, as many others do, that positivity attracts positivity. If we build good karma, we will receive it in return. Perhaps the best-known treatment of the law of attraction is in the movie and book, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne.15 Byrne posits that one’s positive thoughts are powerful magnets that attract wealth, health, and happiness. I am not sure I would go that far, but I do enjoy what positive thinking is doing for my life. I try to see the good in all situations.
I started truly living the Twelve Steps. I believe the Twelve Steps are a guide for living that all should follow. Even if you are not an addict of some sort, I implore you to check out some of the Twelve Step literature, and to attend an open meeting.
The Steps involve trust in a Higher Power, working on one’s character flaws, taking personal inventory, and helping others. I apply the Twelve Steps to anything in my life that is off-balance. I made amends even to people to whom I did not want to make amends, because doing whatever I can to clean up my side of the street is an important part of recovering from the disease of alcoholism or addiction in general.
The Twelve Steps are not static. I will go through the Steps with my sponsor many times over the course of my life. The first time was the hardest. I unearthed and admitted all the things I had done that had kept me mired in shame. Much to my surprise, as I listed this parade of horribles, she often nodded and said she had done the same thing. When I share something from my past in a women’s meeting, like the dangerous experience of blacking out and waking up somewhere completely foreign to me, I see nods of agreement and sounds of empathetic recognition around the room. Speaking out about past sexual, emotional, and physical abuse I experienced, like the rape when I was seventeen years old by a popular football team captain, helps me heal. And now that I have witnessed so many other women’s stories, I don’t feel so aberrant or alone. I finally have dropped that rock of shame.
The second time I went through the Steps, I was able to see how my character flaws can morph over time or change to different ones altogether. For example, I felt pride that I was no longer drinking to oblivion, yet I judged my old drinking buddies. At least now I take time to be aware of and address these flaws. What better way to live my life than to keep trying to improve it—and me? Each year, I take a specific inventory for myself of whether and how I am being the best version of myself that I can be.
My sponsor helps keep me on track. My writing accountability partner helps me keep producing, in accordance with the goals we each have set for ourselves. We check in with each other online when we have time-sensitive benchmarks we want to reach or deadlines we have to meet. Find a person or a group who can help you stay focused on goals you set for yourself. It really helps, with just about anything. If I want to exercise regularly, committing to meeting a friend for scheduled walks or at a yoga class gets me out the door.
I write letters of thanks to the many guides I have had along the way. On each Thanksgiving, I handwrite a letter to someone I am grateful to have in my life. The art of letter writing is slowly dying in this digital age. At least once a year I do my part to keep this lovely practice alive.
I pay forward good works and deeds. I look for ways to be of service to others.
One way I give back what has been given to me is by sponsoring other women in recovery from drugs and alcohol. We speak heart to heart. I guide the women through the Twelve Steps that saved my life. Sometimes it feels as if my Higher Power is speaking through me as things come out of my mouth out of nowhere and seem to be just what my sponsee needs to hear in that moment. We share at the deepest level. We heal.
Some of my most profound service experience occurs when I help women recovering from trauma, particularly rape survivors. There are so many rape and sexual assault survivors in recovery programs, probably due in part to the prevalence of alcohol and drugs in our lives and social circles. When I was in trauma counseling, I learned that one in four women in the United States will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime. Because it happened to me and I am open now about that fact, I am serving as a counselor to rape survivors. As we bear witness to each other’s pain, we can move through it and not let it define us. We not only get to survive; we can thrive.
I believe we all can make a difference in someone’s life. I used to volunteer in homes for the elderly, and drove a centenarian to a pool for her weekly exercise. She usually swam only two laps when on these outings, but I certainly admired her effort. The joy you can bring with one conversation with a lonely person who has no other visitors is almost overwhelming. You can change your life, and the life of someone else, for the better with even a little effort.
What sort of road map would you like to pursue? Every single one of us can do something to improve our lives, even if it is with a simple change of attitude. Read positive books or blogs; surround yourself with positive people. One need not be a Christian to find inspiration in the peace prayer attributed to Saint Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
This prayer spoke to me as a child, and continues to do so, perhaps even more, in this third third of my life. It is a foundation upon which I try to live my life.
Start action on your 50 after 50 list and watch your life improve. Check out my website and this book’s appendix for ideas when you are stymied. Experience freedom by making the most of whatever time you have left. Enjoy!
III
Lessons and Tools for Your Own 50 After 50 List
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
—Buddha
So what did I learn in this year of magical doing? I sought this year to reclaim my life for myself and to find my voice. My quest to try 50 new things after turning 50 started as a selfish means of catharsis, of finding joy and purpose in my life following a period of darkness and loss. I realized from multiple conversations that my quest was of wide interest and could be of help to many others. If I help even one reader recalibrate her life and infuse it with vitality, I will have paid forward the kindness and inspiration shared with me. I will have succeeded.
First and foremost, I gained the stark clarity that it is my life and it is up to me what I do with it in whatever time I have left. As we age, we lose loved ones. We learn that we need to take advantage of the present moment. I don’t want to look back on my life and see that I settled for less than I could have done. Or that I wasted the precious commod
ity of time doing things I did not care about and that did not bring me closer to being the person I want to be. At the end of my life, I do not want to look back wistfully at what might have been. This year has shown me that I can still have peak experiences after five decades of life have passed.
I learned that, with an open mind and spirit, there is much abundance that can arrive in my life. When one door opens, many more doors follow. Before this transformational time in my life, I could not have imagined the people I have met and the joy of the experiences I have had. I try to approach the things I encounter with a sense of wonder and gratitude.
The beauty of growing up in this generation is the breadth of our choices. We can chapter our lives. We can make more opportunities for ourselves.
Once my basic needs were filled, I came to realize that material acquisitions do not bring lasting happiness. The wise monk and interfaith scholar, Brother David Steindl-Rast, reminds me that if I am grateful, I act out of a sense of enough and not out of a sense of scarcity. “Happiness does not make us grateful; gratitude makes us happy.”1 Each moment is a gift and an opportunity. We can avail ourselves of this opportunity or miss it. He reminds me that the key to happiness is in my own hands. Now I seek to stop and savor each experience, and not to focus on acquiring material things. I seek not to rush through life failing to “open my senses for this wonderful richness that is given to us,” and to enjoy what life is giving me, moment by moment.2
I acknowledge that I have a certain amount of privilege to have been allowed so many choices. I am well educated. I am half Caucasian, which has given me a modicum of attendant white privilege. I am resourceful and employed. My children are grown. Had they still been dependent upon me, I would not have been willing to take as many risks as I did, or to travel as much as I did. I have lived a full life, and am no longer terrified of dying.
I am grateful for my many blessings, and I hope that I am not off-putting to you in the many things I have chosen to do after turning 50. I have two dear friends who sometimes use the hashtag, #ImNotMaria, as shorthand for my doing too much at any given time, or my ability to juggle many things at once. I have enough self-awareness now to know—and to be OK with—the fact that not everyone will like me or agree with me, or have the financial means, desire, or energy to do some of the things I suggest in this book. But my hope for you is that this book will encourage you to do whatever you can to make the most of the time you have left here.
There is so much I didn’t understand in my life as it was happening. It is only in hindsight, and with life experience, that things make sense to me now. As a young person, I didn’t know what I didn’t know! I equated only pleasure with happiness. Now I seek a more lasting serenity. I do wish the young Maria knew what the current Maria knows.
A former nurse, Bronnie Ware, has written about the most commonly expressed five things her dying patients shared with her at the end of their lives:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish I had let myself be happier.3
I am working hard to make sure these regrets are not mine when my time comes.
When my daughter was little, I started collecting advice in a journal from trusted women on what they wish they had known when they were teenagers. I gave my daughter the journal when she turned 13. If it saved her from only one mistake, I believe it did the job I intended it to do. If you are inspired to maximize the quality of the time you have left in this life after reading this book, I will have succeeded with this as well.
A friend from college suddenly died this year after a fall. He fell from a ladder while helping his mother with a home repair. He died instantly. It was the day of his 25th wedding anniversary. His eulogy was moving. I had no idea that he was a deeply spiritual and religious man. The church was packed with people who had been touched by his many kindnesses.
Do you ever wonder how you will be remembered when you die? What will your legacy be?
I try to live each day as if it were my last, though that is impracticable in some ways. But events such as my friend’s recent funeral remind me that it is quality and not always quantity that matters most. I do not let opportunities go by to show and tell those I love how I feel. I try every day to make the world better because I was here. I would like to make a huge impact on the world by alleviating suffering in some way. In the meantime, I’m endeavoring to bloom where I am planted with good works and deeds, and to appreciate every day I am given on this earth.
The one that I was is no more. I learned from my past. I made peace with my skeletons and let go of my anger and regret. And I have distilled the wisdom gleaned through my 50 new things into the following top ten life lessons:
Be authentic to yourself. It took me a long time (unfortunately about 50 years) to figure out what that meant for me. I felt I had to prove myself to the world. I didn’t feel “good enough,” so I wore many masks. But we all are enough. I choose now to LOVE OUT LOUD.
Follow your passion in life. The happiest people I know are doing things they enjoy. The days may sometimes seem long, but the years are short. Make the most of your time on earth! We never know which day will be our last. Each day is a precious gift.
You are responsible for your own happiness. No one else can do it. Real happiness comes from within. I forgive myself and I love myself, as I am a child of God/the Universe. And if you can accept the things you cannot change, you will experience peace.
Respect yourself. Surround yourself with people who help you to become the best version of yourself. If the apocalypse arrived, who would you want by your side? Friends and family are more important than any material pursuit.
Much of our society runs on connections and relationships. Conduct yourself with propriety, especially in this Internet age. Never put in writing or on the web what you wouldn’t mind the world seeing. If you come from a place of love and kindness, you are unlikely to do harm.
Practice the pause before speaking, writing, or sending. If you don’t have anything to hide, life is much easier. And we are more likely to do the right thing if we examine our motivations before acting.
What others think of me is none of my business. You cannot know what is going on with others. Their reality is not yours. You are responsible for your actions, but not for how they are perceived by others. As we say in recovery, “to thine own self be true.”
Practice mindfulness and meditation. Appreciate the beauty around you. Especially when you feel unsettled or upset, focus on your breath. Breathe deeply. It will center and ground you. Be present in the moment. All we really ever have is the Now.
Be grateful. An attitude of gratitude changes everything. I wake up every morning and think of ten things for which I am grateful, from the profound to the mundane. I can walk, I can taste, I can see—we are extraordinarily lucky.
Cultivate your spirituality. You can talk to your Higher Power all day long. You can find your Higher Power anywhere. Rejoice in this life God has given you, and let the light of the Spirit shine through you.
I wish I had internalized these lessons before more than half of my life was spent. But it is not over yet. None of us has to wait until our lives are in shambles before making significant changes.
My overarching goal in my post-50 life is to make this world better because I was here. I believe you can do the same.
For those of you still feeling some resistance to acting, consider this powerful verse from the late Irish poet, John O’Donohue:
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quie
tly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.4
Amen! Now is our time. Time is the one thing you cannot get back. Whether you are on the cusp of retirement or just getting going in your career, create a life worth living. Do not waste whatever time you have left. Do not merely settle. Find your bliss. Start now.
Starting Your List
May your choices reflect your hope, not your fears.
—Nelson Mandela
Sometimes it takes a life-jarring event or a bad health diagnosis to get a person to make any significant changes. If you have been lucky enough not to suffer such things, do you really want to wait until something awful happens before taking steps to elevate your life? I have had several biopsies lately and it feels like a roulette wheel. Will cancer be found this time, I wonder?
50 After 50 Page 19
