The seasons of your life

I don´t think it is that we have too many choices, but the fact that you feel like you are supposed to achieve everything. Be CEO of a company, write books of poetry, raise kids, and volunteer at the local homeless shelter. Achieve one or two of these things and you still feel you haven´t achieved it all. I always used to set goals and say "When I get THAT done, then things will be great" but by the time you get there, you are already striving for the next goal. ER seems to be happy with that, and I think she also appreciates what she has achieved. My problem is I was never satisfied with the situation, even when it was great. I am learning to stop and look at my life and appreciate it.

But all of those choices are meaningless. See personally I'm a bit of a determinist. Shit happens cos shit supposed to happen. There is only one choice as far as I'm concerned. Be yourself, and react to shit accordingly, or don't and be what you think other people want you to be and react according to others expectations. Ok - its probably not entirely obvious what I mean, but think about those defining moments in your life, their usually when bad stuff happens (at least I find so far). Think about how you reacted - in these moments you either stand true to yourself and get stronger, or you betray yourself and carry regrets. That choice in those moemnts is the only choice that matters. The rest is all rubbish.


Yeah thats kind what I mean.


Yeah I've met one or two people like that (mind you ONLY one or two) - but it is possible!!


I don't think its a case of waiting for a perfect partner. What I see around me is alot of people settling for someone they shouldn't be with cos they think they won't get anyone else, or they are afraid to be single, or they are comfortable, or they want babies in a hurry, or all they're mates are getting married so they do too. F**K THAT SH*T. I'd rather be single than do that (but again I view that as being true to oneself). Every few years or so I meet someone who I really connect with and I've brief times where the storm of chaos that is my life has died down and I've gotten to be with those people for a while and I know it is SOOOOOOOOO much better than just settling for someone 'nice' (truly one of the most insulting things you can say about someone in the English language is that they are 'nice').


Again I view this stuff as other people's expectations. And again the ONLY choice worth talking about is to accept other people's expectations or to define your own and be true to yourself. I couldn't give a monkeys about acheiving x, y or z that society says are good. All I want is a decent place to live, a job to do that I feel is worthwhile, someone I connect with to share that with + or - kids, and some decent people as friends. If I happen to achieve some stuff on the way to gettign where I want to be then well and good, but I really don't care about that kind of thing past a superficial level.

I wholeheartedly agree with that, hence my last sentence:


Edit: Btw, when I said "myself included," I was referring to past relationships, not my current one. This one's perfect.

No, I'm definitely also guilty of not appreciating what I have, I do regularly have to remind my self how good things are.

Yup agree with that too!

I think it's not so much that they as individuals hold strong beliefs against divorce, but that their society holds such beliefs. Staying in an unhappy marriage is preferable to being ostracised as a divorcee.


Change that to "when you THINK someone fancies you". A lot of relationships get started that way. Person A gets the mistaken impression that Person B finds him/her attractive. As a result, Person A is attracted to Person B. Person B then notices this, and as a result becomes attracted to Person A. This sets off a self-reinforcing feedback cycle, and BOOM! Later, after the dust has settled, A and B either realise they made a big mistake, or else they are sufficiently compatible for something long-term to develop, each partner convinced that the other was completely besotted with them from the start.

Anyway, to get back to the original topic of this thread. From the perspective of the "other" side of 50, I can report that a curious phenomenon of time-dilation occurs with advancing age. The older one gets, the faster the weeks, months, years go by. In childhood, a few weeks seems like an eternity. By the time you get to 20, you are able to grasp the concept of a timespan of weeks, but 30 is still an eternity away. Once you get to 30, you start to realise that you will not be young forever. By 40, the time acceleration is gathering pace, and you start to notice that things that you thought happened a couple of months ago were actually more than a year ago. At 50, a year seems more like how you used to perceive a couple of weeks. It's like watching sand trickling through an hour glass. As the sand runs out, the level goes down faster and faster. I don't yet know what it will be like at 60, but I take comfort in the thought that the aches and pains and general suffering of old age will pass by quickly.

Moral: Have fun in your twenties, and put off the important decisions until you reach 30 and have gained a bit of life experience. But once you get past 30, don't put off anything any longer. Don't think you've got forever still ahead of you. Grab every opportunity and go for it now!

The cleverist thing I ever read about life was from Edaurd de Bono.

"life is a holiday from non-existance". On holiday we're all happy and friendly, we'll talk to our nieghbours at the dinner table, we'll smile at the screaming child; we'll brush off the nasty comment; and why because we're care free, because we're relaxed and somehow wish it to be so benign and free of stress. We make a mess out off life buy wanting it to be perfect and the best. Wait for that and your going to miss out. Strive forit and you'll never be happy.

Can you remember how it was before you were born? No, and that is how it will be when we are dead. Our lives are just a jumbled fuck up of carbon atoms, protiens cells and the rest. Nothing more. But god isn't it wonderful and cool. Pretty good holiday. Don't waste it searching for perfection, because its not there. Spend time to close your eyes and listen to the rain. Dont live everyday as your last, but appreciate that one day will be. Be happy with your achievments no matter how small and forgive your mistakes no matter how large. Accept you were already dead the day you were born. And pray you never have to bury your own children.

Thats it.

In reference to Gideon's posting, it reminds me of something that Dr. Richard Dawkins (Oxford Professor) said in his TV series. He is an outspoken atheist like myself (and I think Gideon by the sounds of things).

His point was that it is actually we atheists that have the ability to appreciate life more than the followers of religion. The true atheist appreciates life MORE because we understand that this is no dress rehearsal. We know
there is no after-life. It's now or never. We also appreciate the incredible flukiness of our existence.

Read the teachings of Epicurus if want a really good philosophy in life.


To read a few more bits n bobs from the great man... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Epicurus

Wise thoughts GT. My Dad told me about this phenomenon. I think this is why I am interested in gardening as one can see how seasons progres and gain a feeling of time. When I am in a beautiful place for example in the mountains like I was last week I realised that one day I will be no longer here but just dust. Perhaps.


Even though I am not atheist but agnostic, I still have respect for the wisdom the
 ancient religions can teach us. As I remember the Bible was
full of wisdom such as the parables which you don't need to believe that Jesus saved mankind to find inspiring.

Time now to dig up the Desiderata. News to me this morning is that it wasnt written by a nun in a 16th Century church but by a Max Ehrmann in the 1920s. Still good though.

IW': Ancient Greece and Rome - what wisdom they have to teach us!

Is this not the era that was harked back to by the artists of that amazing era of art the Renaissance?

Fantastic art came from that period, which they believe led to the rise of the modern west.

I've posted this elsewhere on the forum, but seems like it might belong here too. It always seems to give me focus when I'm struggling over which direction to take in my life.


Prologue to The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, History of Western Philosophy

Yep. You and me JE.

You just reminded me of...

You, Me And Jesus

Cliff ain't gonna meet Jesus 'cos he likes doing jiggy jiggy with boys instead of girls.

Life will go on without you and will carry off wonderful opportunities in it's wake if you are not prepared to take the chances they present.

My experience in the last few years have shown me personally that the ability to accept good advice and constructive criticism, to discard things that are of no use to you and to radically change your direction can make an enormous difference to your life.

This does not however mean that I will be throwing away my Jethro Tull pyjamas.

"Life is like a bed, it's what you make it.
As long as you take it lying down."

Messrs. R. Corbet & R. Barker

*looks at flight confirmation for Wellington via Tokyo including trip to Australia freshly printed on desk, grins*

They say "you're as old as the man you feel", that is why I am with a guy 10 years my junior! ;-)

Btw, am I the only one that has started reflecting on everthing that has happened in my life since I am approaching 35... Have others around this age started doing this too? Thinking "where has time gone?"... Reflecting on what I am currently doing in life with my career, and am I doing the right thing? Should I maybe change jobs?

I am driving me mad sometimes... :-}

40 is the fucker. 40 is like, shit, I am proper old. 35, 36, 37 is no big deal. 40 is fuuuuuuuuuck, did I do enough with my life?

It's a funny birthday, alright. My 35th was in June and yes if I compare last year with this year, yes there's been some pretty big changes (like for me getting healthier by dropping a little weight and a lot of baggage, moving department at work, trying a new sport), but also some pretty big things that have been kept (most of my pals, my flat, my love of concerts...). Pal of mine born two weeks after me has just left her husband and moved to another country, now that's a pretty big change for 35!

Think of it like stocktaking - some things are past their sell-by date and need to go, some things are depleted or you can spot the holes.

And that's where the ticket mentioned above comes in, if I don't do it now, I might never - sometimes you have to make room, drop your head and dash for the gap.
But it is bloody exciting!

Good for you dear, That's what I felt like as I received my free plane ticket to the Gulf in 1994. Wouldnt have missed the experience for the world.

Mind you I had a few doubts as my Aeroflot plane was stuck in Heathrow an hour en route via Moscow to Ulan Bataar in 2000. Stuck in Moscow Novotel 3 days without a Russian visa as I missed the flight to Mongolia. But then again I met my wife there and we snogged in the steppe all night so it was not too bad in the end.

K you might come back with a future husband! Good luck!

After "Singing in the rain", here comes "Snogging in the steppe"!

shit, i thought this at 30!

Me too! My 35th was also in June, and how different my life is this year with the pregnancy and all. Funny thing is that my birthday officially put me in the category of 'advanced maternal age'! I still feel like a kid!

Btw, I'm really jealous of your upcoming antipodean journey. I'm starting to get antsy here. I've been in the same place now for two years, and I'm getting the itch to go to another country.

@ for Johnny

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it
Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices tying
His father's tie there in secret

And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.

Thanks zemonkey. As a Farty year old also I liked it too.

I am 40 and I have to say here that yes I did burn the candle at both ends sometimes and yes I had a bloody interesting life. Many crazy times later it is a wonder I am still here.

I saw Keith Richards at Olympiastadium a few years ago before daughter came and thought fuck, nice one. Would like to be like that.

Yeah, it's 2 months off on paid vacation - I may never get the chance again to travel like this so I'm grabbing it with both hands. My brother's wedding on Jan 26th in Palmerston North is an easy excuse. This has been a long time coming, but somehow it just all feels like it fits.
You'll probably pass that fidget gene to your kiddy, ipj! Not a bad thing at all

Warning dear Katrina- what you are about to experience may somewhat change your head.

I can remember John Schwelm looking at us 25 year olds as we sat in a minibus bound for Heathrow en route to Ladakh with a look in his eye which said we were about to have a life changing experience. He was right.

I'd have been stuck in a village pub in north Wales right nowif it hadnt been for seeing Ladakh.

To use that Nike cliche, Go for it!

Isn't the Nike tagline 'just do it'?

Sorry IPJ, beer has got me as usual.

Dawkins - jeesh you had to bring him into it. tip for you atheists out there - you are more convincing if you don't bring him up. His God Delusion is rubbish - its like fundamentalist atheism, it snot very persuasive. Its sounds just as 'religious' to me as actual religion does. And for the record I'd consider myself a pantheist according to Dawkin's classifications, however I don't agree with his contention that pantheism and atheism are the same - not by a long shot.

At 40 the question is not "Did I do enough with my life ?" rather it should be "Am I doing enough with my life now?".

Turning 30 is nothing ... turning 40 is no big deal. Where it really hits you is when you turn 50.

On my 40th birthday, my German bank sent me a birthday card with a picture of red roses. On my 50th, they sent me what I can only interpret as a letter of commiseration. The words of wisdom went something like: "Life is like climbing a mountain. As we get older, we become tired and out of breath, but at least the view is better". Er ... well, thanks ... I think.


I don't think the atheist appreciates life more. It's now or never anyway, regardless of whether there is an afterlife. Life is a one-way street, and if you miss the opportunities when they present themselves, you can't go back for another try.

Thank goodness there is someone else who has reached the big 50, I thought I was the only one.

"Enjoy every sandwich" - Warren Zevon (RIP)