Well, today’s the day. It’s March 7th, and it’s my birthday.
While I think every birthday is grand, this is one of the big ones. Today I turn 40.
This has been on my mind every so often for the last few months. I know that for some people certain ages can be somewhat traumatic. Like turning 30, for instance. And turning 40 would be another.
I’m different in that regard. When I turned 30, I was somewhat ecstatic, especially to leave my 20s behind me. My trauma came five years prior, when I turned 25. At that age, I was in my “comparison mode,” if you will. I spent the day somewhat depressed, looking at all the things I hadn’t accomplished. I compared myself to all the people I had gone to high school with, imagining they had all gone off to college, graduated, moved on to the professions they had gone to school for, and were leading successful lives. I had not gone on to college, and I was still working the same job I had when I turned 17, still in high school. My life, to me, seemed to be going nowhere. The funny thing about that now is this: how exactly did I know that everyone but me was this huge success? And who defines what is exactly successful, anyway?
I had moved to more existential thinking by the time I was 30. I was motivated by an inner need to know what my purpose, my calling was; exactly, why was I here, and what was I to be doing?
And it was that way for the next 9 years and 6 months. Then, a depression kicked in once again. I look back on it now as having my “mid-life crisis” early. One of the symptoms this time was the sense that I’d somehow made a wrong turn in life, and was now wandering aimlessly, with no sense of direction.
Now, by this time I had gone to college and gotten an Associates in Arts degree. I overlooked this achievement with the fact that I hadn’t pursued my education further, because of uncertainty as to what it is I ultimately want to do. It sounded like I was in my 20s all over again.
Another thing was that I am now in my other job, in the same position I was when I started at this company 12 years ago. My managers all hope I will one day move up the ladder, but I have no interest in that. And life is an interesting thing. People seem to come to you asking the very same questions you have in your mind: How long have you been here? How long are you going to be here? Do you still want to be doing this type of work when you’re 60? Why are you wasting yourself here? When are you going to go into management?
Once again, I was faced with this feeling of being stuck, of being uncertain as to what I was doing here. One of my managers asked me if I was having a “career crisis,” when he found out I was contemplating a transfer to another department in the company. It was something he said, during the course of our conversation, that struck me; he said, “Whatever it takes to make you happy, I am willing to do it, and to support you in that.”
It begs an interesting question: do we actually know what would make us happy? I consider myself one of those people who can readily tell you what makes me unhappy, but to tell you what makes me happy requires some serious thought.
So, turning 40 is now a quest to find out what makes me happy, and to do it. I started my own business a few years ago, and it brings me happiness, the type my “day job” has never seemed to do. I’m one of these people where I want to find work that is meaningful, that has a sense of purpose, that is something I have been uniquely called to do (which sounds familiar, as this was the same theme when I turned 30; it must be a cycle I enter into every decade).
In Kabbalah, it is said that 40 is the age of enlightenment. In Christianity, the number 40 is associated with being in the wilderness. I think that’s where I’ve been, so let’s hope I’m moving out from the wilderness, and into some enlightenment.
Until the next time…here’s hoping you find your own light.
James
