by Christopher Hessman
Today I turn 64, having entered this life February 16, 1947. That makes me a certified Baby Boomer, a member in good standing of a petted generation that has touched, for good and ill, virtually everything on this planet, incising its deep mark far and wide.
We started life as heirs to creation; now we are the hair thinning, pounds packing, "I can beat the age rap and live forever" folks for whom the motto "been there, done that" pretty much summarizes things.
We have known everything (until we discovered that we didn't); loved many (until we discovered, later than our parents, the virtue of loving one); traveled everywhere, only to discover the beauties of the place and people we left behind... and now crave.
We have known many identities, many loyalties, many styles, more sounds, and often tragic insights into the human condition, sufficient to beat every band but one.... Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. (Released June 1, 1967).
I remember the day this album hit the streets. I was in Santa Barbara, California and my friends, each selected with a connoisseur's eye, had waited in an overnight line so that could be amongst the first million or so who purchased this latest effusion from the group to which we gave (mostly) unqualified allegiance.
As the happy possessors of this album made their excited way back to their ocean-side apartments, always more resort than dormitory, from now this window, now that emerged the sounds of the new rhythms we were hearing for the first time, assessing each tune with care, deliberation, and a practised ear.
At that moment I first heard the questions that compose "When I'm Sixty Four."
When I get older losing my hair Many years from now. Will you still be sending me a Valentine Birthday greetings bottle of wine... Will you still need me, will you still feed me....
The tune, as you must know if you are a member of my generation, is about a young man posing the question every young person in the grip of an early, unrelenting passion insists on knowing about his incomparable Significant Other: is what we have True, The Real Thing, Forever?
To find out, the young man queries his beloved, sketching out in the process a life lived in the backwater, with only the simplest challenges, joys, and triumphs:
I could be handy, mending a fuse When your lights have gone. You can knit a sweater by the fireside Sunday morning go for a ride.
The young man, still very much a boy for all his raging hormones, figures that if he offers so little to his equally youthful beloved and she accepts... why, then, she really does love him. So he sings of a vision of little joys, picayune pleasures, minor challenges... all redeemed, however, by... you., the inamorata of this catchy little number.
Sir Paul McCartney wrote this song at age 16, before there were Beatles, millions of screaming fans, and royal honors. He, like me, had to imagine that condition of life... and for him, like me, it was "many years from now."
Now "many years from now" has arrived... and the condition I could hardly imagine is the reality of my life. Having lived, I shall now exercise the privilege of age, sharing insights with you.
* Never forget the people who love you. They are the most important people of all.
Denizens of my generation were what my very stay-at-home grannie called "gad-abouts", going everywhere but to the people who counted. Recognize the importance of such people as early as you can; then hold them fast to you. They matter.
* Make each day a learning day.
Learning, as I may not have gleaned in the days I was ordered into the classroom, is the consummate privilege; an exercise subsidized by the community to turn you into a better person.
Now I am voracious in pursuit of my education, in love with knowledge and the thoughts and ideas of others who excite, inspire, and move me more the older I get.
* Make money early... then focus on more important things.
Money is important, desirable, useful. Thus, when young and in possession of your utmost energy, lunge for it with all your might. Then, having achieved life securing success, turn your energies to other, more significant things. For while money is necessary, it never defines the truly well lived life.
* Never allow yourself to be the sum total of your disabilities, defeats, disillusions and nothing more.
Life is punctuated by injuries, crises, losses, mayhem. But life, being life, is always more than these. Remind carping people around you; remind yourself to stop and perceive the amenities and benefits all around you, if you but take the trouble to perceive them.
I take that trouble, and grateful, too.
* Remember, no person is "self made". We all owe whatever success we have had to the assistance of others -- many others. Recognize them.
The words "self made" are regularly trotted out like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, thereby suggesting that the individual rose alone, majestic. But the truth is, no one rises alone. We rise because of the sustained help and assistance of others, many others.
Take time to remember these "others", to thank and to venerate them, for they are the people who helped shape you.
* Take time to remember and savor the wonder of -- you.
It is easy to forget, and crucial to remember, that there has never been anyone like you before... and upon your passing, there will never be another to come.
Thus from time to time, upon such an occasion as this, pause and contemplate yourself, with wonder, bliss, awe. For you have helped shape not only yourself but a world of others. And you deserve all credit arising therefrom.
Today I shall allow myself the luxury of exulting in the marvelous creature I, along with so many others, have crafted. No false modesty, nothing abashed... just pure, unadulterated joy. For that is what turning 64 entitles you to and completely justifies, and I intend to make the most of it!
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About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice! Republished with author's permission by Christopher Hessman http://ProvenAutomatedBiz.com. Check out The List Edge -> http://www.ProvenAutomatedBiz.com/?rd=ud5Muuyc
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