The First Fifty: Grateful and Expectant

Fifty.  After that many years you'd like to think you have your own philosophy on life, but those two words better describe my life than any other two.  So I have to give credit to Earl Nightingale for them.  Essentially everything I am or will be can be attributed to the impact of others.  I just pray I'm wise enough to choose to hang on to the good things and drop the not-so-good.

Grateful

I am grateful to live on a planet filled with wonder and beauty.  I am awestruck by God's creation and magnificence.  There are not words to convey how grateful I am for this place we call Earth and the privilege of living.  Thank you Lord.

I am grateful to be living in what is arguably the most interesting time mankind has experienced.  The truly amazing things we have and will have in the remainder of my life thanks to those incredible people who take risks and have a vision enrich my life every day.  Can you imagine what tomorrow will bring?  Very exciting stuff.

I am grateful to live in the greatest nation ever conceived by man and blessed by God.  Freedom isn't free and I take it for granted every day.  Thank you to the men and women who sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so that I may, at my choosing, risk everything to start a new endeavor or just sit my lazy butt down and do nothing.  We are given the gift of choice in this most favored land.  Thanks to you for providing me that gift.

I am grateful that I have been blessed with amazing people who have come (and some have stayed) into my life.  With far too many to mention please know how much you mean to me.   I only hope that I have enriched your lives as you have mine.

I am grateful that I was born into an extended family of loving people who never let me wonder if I was loved.  I have always known I am loved and it means everything to me.  I love all of you.

I am grateful that I found the love of my life at a young age and actually lost her for a time.  This experience gave me perspective to understand just how damn lucky I am to have her.  Again, I know I am loved.  Thank you Tammy.  You too are loved.

I am grateful to have two unbelievable children (now young men) who continue to amaze and astound me.  If I could have chosen the perfect children it would have been the two of you.  Grant and Carson, you have made me a great father.  I love you.  Thanks.

I am grateful to have known success and failure and to have always had interesting and challenging work.  Success is a gift.  Work is a gift.  So are challenges and difficulty.  I've never had a shortage of any of these and I am grateful.

I am thankful that I have been able to forgive and that others have forgiven me.  I am eternally grateful that Jesus died for my sins.  I really needed (and continue to need) His grace.  Undeserving.  So undeserving but endeavoring to improve.  Thank you Lord.

I am grateful that people who mean so much to me in life won't feel left out if they aren't mentioned individually here.  I have done my best to demonstrate that you mean a lot to me, not just to declare it.  Never think that you aren't important because if you are in my life you are vitally important to me.  You are all loved.

Expectant

I expect the best in life and have usually found it.  I also expect that challenges will come and I have found them as well.  I am endeavoring to expect more of the best and less of the challenges.

I expect that the first fifty have been preparation for the next fifty.  I expect that any joy, disappointment, success, failure, love, indifference, and other experience I have had was preparation for a future experience.  I expect that I will benefit from the implementation of knowledge gleaned in the first fifty.

I expect that I will be better as a person in the next fifty years than I have been in the first fifty.  After all, I've made a lot of mistakes and a lot of great choices.  I have learned from both and will implement that knowledge.

I expect that I will continue to learn and grow.  You're either growing or dying.  When I go I expect to be in full stride.

I expect that I will have a positive impact.  We have all been granted gifts and abilities beyond our measure.  I expect that I will use more of mine in the years to come and that I will help others use more of theirs as well.

I expect that life will mean more to me in the next fifty than in the previous.  I have learned that we take life and death for granted.  While each day brings me closer to death, each day also brings me great opportunity and experience.  I appreciate that.

I also expect that I have been given, free and clear, the greatest resource any man can have.  I have a brain that works and I expect that in the next fifty years I will use it more effectively than I did in the first fifty years.

I expect that very few people will ever read, much less care about, what I expect and that's fine.  I expect I wrote this for myself and the few people who do read it will benefit in some way as well.

I expect that the best is just around the corner.  I used to think that be best goals were ones that were set just out of reach but not out of sight.  What a disappointing way to live.  Always having what you want just out of reach but never out of your sight.  Everything I want that I currently don't have isn't out of reach, it's just conveniently tucked behind a corner. I expect that I will turn more corners in the next fifty years.

I expect that I get what I expect.  I expect the next fifty years will be incredible.  And yes, I expect to be given the privilege of writing about the second fifty years of my life.

by admin