Forty just means you only have 20 more years to go

LESS THAN A MONTH FROM NOW, I will be celebrating my fortieth birthday. I'm thinking real hard if I'll be having a grand party with friends, or just celebrate it alone. Since I reached 30, I stopped celebrating my birthdays. I just don't know why. For me, its still a pagan ritual for someone to celebrate birthdays.

For many though, reaching 40 is one important milestone. First, you only have 20 more years to go and second, you may not even reach fifty. Yes, being 40 means enjoying life. It may even be the start of something nice.

Physically, I still feel as if I'm just twenty. Seriously. Though I am heavier now by at least 40 pounds, and heave my way through a flight of stairs instead of my usual sprinting stint, I still feel excellent. There are, some physical changes in me, like, maybe, having lots of grey hairs than before, or seeing my hands before my fat face and realizing that these two huge palms are really not enough to cover my entire face. One palm equals 1/3 of my entire face. Wow.

Really, I don't drink, but unfortunately, I have a huge beer belly, an uncanny sight. Maybe because I sit hours and hours, pouring over hundreds of documents and writing, writing without standing up for an exercise. I just drink my morning coffee and off I go, writing stuff, answering emails and corresponding with friends and getting some information that I pass on thru my blogs.

Shedding previous pounds is a priority for me. One, I would like to run as fast as before. Now, a few quick steps and my heart starts pounding like crazy and thousands of sweat beads fill my shirt.

What I really am proud of is, I am wiser now than before. MY thought process is faster than usual and I'm more creative now than, maybe, 10 years ago? Thanks to the web, I now have access to information that I use to inspire me and weave creative campaigns for my company. 

Travelling outside the country is not a priority for me any longer. I have visited the US, Australia, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, Hongkong, China, INdonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and even Brazil---all in just two years. Have seen, experienced and experimented with different things already in my life, read maybe a kilometer of books already and experienced different shades of life. The only thing probably that I have'nt done is go to Egypt and see those pyramids for myself.

I miss nothing of my past. Yes, we do commit mistakes and those make us wiser. I now avoid things which will ruin my stable life which, for the past three years, have been wonderful.

When I was young, I imagined myself commandeering a great army and leading the way towards a successful revolt. I would have loved seeing myself dying by the wayside, a bullet pierced in my chest. That is one great way to die. Or die seeing the great revolutionary entreprise standing alone, without need of heroes.

Now, the very prospect of dying like an old man lies before me. Someone says, that's the way to go. Yeah.

Every life, I believe, should have a reason for being. God created us for a reason. And what reason is that, by the way? It is for us to be part of the great cycle of life, for us to be an important part of that community. A life spent just by helping oneself is a life worth nothing. Life needs to be nurtured. And for that, every single living organism should contribute to that nurturing.

Sometimes I think---what if I am living in a matrix where all of my forty years were really spent inside a cell being nurtured by vitaminized fluids and living in a fantasy world created by those in power? That I am not what I think I am and that existence really means being just a cow, milked by someone, somehow, somewhere. What if that was true, and I awoke realising that I spent the last forty years without having accomplished something for others? Some people live like that.

Anyway, I thank God that I have lived this long. I hope that the coming years for me would be a life of servitude for my people, and if that final day comes when I am called by my Creator to serve Him, I am ready to tell him, that, yes, I have served Him until the very last breath of this life, and beyond.