Drawing the Line Here

I have much for which to be thankful. I have a good job, wonderful friends and the respect of my peers. I make enough to afford myself the little luxuries but not too much for wealth to be a burden.

In my life, I have loved and been loved several times over. I have regrets – who does not? – but I have learned to live with my choices.

AT 45, I figure I have about a third of my life left. But, I'm afraid that before I die of old age, I might first die from boredom - my remaining days distinguished only by their sameness and uneventfulness.

I have more than 36 pairs of shoes on active rotation - not because of greed or vanity but wearing a different pair every day is one way to break the monotony. There has to be another way:-)

Today, I am asking myself these questions - is there not more that I can do; can i still make a difference? do I have more in me to contribute? do i have energy and passion left to take on a new cause? Can I have that fifth piece of chicken?

I'd like to think so. I just don't know yet where to begin. In the meantime, I'm taking this essay from Paolo Coelho to heart.

CLOSING CYCLES
Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all
feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children,late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment.

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.

This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply
because that no longer fits your life.

Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were,and change into who you are. .