I had a birthday this week which triggered from reflections on my life. I prepared a short list of lessons learned for my party. I hope you find them helpful.
Some Reflections on My Life Triggered by a Recent Birthday
I had a birthday this week and it has put me in a “new goals / new habits” mood. I shared these observations with friends this week; I hope you find them helpful.
Marrying the right woman has been a key decision.
Career options come and go. Jobs evolve, flourish, wither, and morph.
As much of a workaholic as I have become, I recognize my children are my real legacy.
I got into trouble with my health at the height of my financial success. I quit exercising and lost control of my weight working long hours.
My father was a high function alcoholic and smoked three packs of cigarettes a day from 18 to 48. So far, I have avoided both addictions, but only because I kept his example firmly in mind. The few times that I have smoked, I have really really enjoyed it.
I started meditating when I was 16; it’s been a very helpful habit, particularly in times of stress.
“Yet even when I was exulting in my solitude, I became conscious of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet than solitude, and which rightly understood is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free.”
Robert Louis Stevenson in “A Night Among the Pines” (Chapter 13 in “Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes“
Related Blog Posts
- Good Fortune
- Uncle’s Day
- Things I Have Learned from My Children
- The House I Grew Up In
- Joseph A. Murphy (1925-2007)
- Gloria Murphy 1926-2017
- What a Mixmaster our dreams are for our memories
- A Childhood Memory or Two
Photo Credit “Squirrel” (c) Kevin Murphy, used with permission.