Self Reflection - Life at 50+

Last year, when I wished my friend a Happy Birthday, he snapped at me for talking about birthdays after crossing 50 years. Are birthdays only for young people?

In  my opinion, birthdays are not so important for young ones as they are too busy chasing their own dreams. Birthdays are important for young people mainly to celebrate - eat, drink, and get wasted (I am NOT complaining here. I believe that life is to live and get all experiences :)).

It's more for people in their 50s. Being at the tail end of the life cycle, here are the questions for our Introspection.

How many people much younger to us have passed away already? While there is no guarantee that we are going to be there to celebrate our next birthday, probably it's time to reflect on our own lives.

1) Is life going in the direction that we have planned? With more mental maturity now, do we still believe in the same values that we believed all along? I read a long time back that while we were young, we were so caught up in climbing up the ladder to reach the top only to realize when we reached the top that we had leaned on to a wrong wall. Unfortunately, then it would be too late in the game and not much time left to start over all again.

2) Are we still carrying grudges and negative feelings for other people making our lives miserable or have we forgiven all that wronged us and kept our mind free of all those negative emotions? If we haven't done it already, it's time to reconcile all of them. Please NOTE that forgiving is not for other people but for our own health, happiness and mental peace.

3) Have we dumped all the toxic people that contribute negatively to our lives or Are we still surrounded by them that make us feel less of us?

4) Life is something to celebrate - Are we doing it?  Are we living every moment? Are we enjoying life OR Are we still living on "autopilot" (dragging life with difficulty like "SSAD" (Same shit-another day) as one of my friends calls it)?

It's time to get the big picture on how life is going and make big course corrections if needed.

I was trying to live by Society standards, or the standards that I was made to believe all my life.. like bigger houses, costlier cars, these all meant the greater successes in life (I realize now that materialistic wins are only a false sense of accomplishment). I was not living my dream ..until I came into this 'Self-actualization" phase.

I never believed in what is valued by society but then why was I following them? Probably lack of self-esteem during all these years was forcing me to follow these values in order to get the approval of outside people/society.

This introspection 5 years back gave me the right focus that resulted in my current situation of living on a 2 acres lot in a 500sft home with more pets and living close to nature with minimalism and de-cluttering of house from unnecessary stuff and .....more important, de-cluttering life from toxic, selfish, mean, self-centered and self-Important (new disease people are suffering from) people.

What truly gives me happiness? Why do we need millions of dollars when we only need just two meals per day and having millions is not going to change what we eat or how we feel? Probably less of it is better for our physical and mental health (As one wise man said, anything in excess is poison and I believe that it includes money too).

Accumulating more money than what we can spend in this lifetime is nothing but a wasted time and energy that could have been well spent in "living" life.

We might think of leaving inheritance to our kids. Remember it's our life struggles that made us strong and tough, and taking these out of the lives of our kids is trying to make them weaker. We would rather give our kids strength and confidence to overcome life battles than completely avoiding struggles for them there by turning them completely weak and making their life purposeless.

The more baggage we have, the more difficult life travel would be for us. If we have excess, share them with less privileged ones. Keep the baggage light. Let's de-clutter our house, our mind, and our life and be/feel liberated.

P.S.: Constructive criticism/comments are Welcome as I get to learn from your perspectives. Thank you, in advance!