Don't Start Too Late

To live as if we will die soon, gives us a chance to choose how we spend our time wisely. I read it’s only too late if You Don’t Start Now by Barbara Sher in preparation for my February retreat. Many of us reach middle life and realize all of a sudden that we’re not immortal. When we figure it out, we start to live like we don’t have enough time to get it all done, and we’re motivated to live our lives to suit who we really are. We grow up, as Bob Dylan sang, “But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” In middle age, Sher says. “you stop being driven by instinct and wake up to a different level of consciousness—complex, subtle, and intense, loaded with revelation and insight.” I want to know why people don’t tell us about how we outgrow wanting to be a star and take up gardening and all kinds of other wonderful endeavors because we fall in love with life and start to live authentically. What we all crave, as much as we crave being close to God, is to be free to live our lives. “The freedom that counts is the freedom to live your life with your heart and mind and emotions wide open.” That will make you young again.