Milestones and Inner Peace

For me, 2010 is quickly becoming the year of the milestone birthday. I cannot keep count of the number of people I know who are turning either 40 or 50 this year and in the last 2 weeks I spoken to 3 acquaintances who just had 30th birthday bashes. I am not entirely sure why but decades are often marked with introspection. I guess it is simply that we are given cause to evaluate our lives at momentous times and I suppose, adding a decade counts as such.
In my parents generation, the angst of life in your 40’s and 50’s was called a mid life crisis and was something that was fed with a sports car or largely ignored as a passing feeling. Something not to be concerned with or fussed about. Our generation seems determined to evaluate and look at potential ways to change.
Of course, our parents also grew up in a world where loyalty to a company was admired and rewarded, where you were defined not by who you were as a person but what you did for a job. It was a time of security with good health care benefits and pension plans, available jobs and all sorts of potential for anyone interested in working hard.
I was speaking with a friend of mine last week about this issue and he told me about a book that helped him called “10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace” by Dr. Wayne Dyer. Like many people I know, he is concerned about his life going forward, about job security and long-term finances, about happiness. I laughed and commented on how times had changed, wondering what our fathers would think about us having a beer and discussing happiness and “inner peace” – they would never have done it… or would they?
As an addendum to my last post and as part of this post, I want to add a blog/ site called Escaping Mediocrity to the list of sites that I follow regularly. I suppose I am attracted to it as part of my self-evaluation – my own attempt to find inner peace. It’s kind of a life-coaching site and interesting enough that I keep going back.
Cheers and have a great day.
George
PS – I saw this today (tweeted by Allan Ward) and thought it an appropriate quote to end this post…
"It is never too late to be what you might have been" - George Eliot