My 40's Manifesto: Year 4

At the dawning of my 40's, I took a look back and felt repelled by the decades that preceded me. I didn't want to do my 20's again for sure. My 30's... ouch. I decided my 40's had to be better. So I took note at where I went wrong in the years before and tried to correct for the trajectories that I am naturally drawn towards.

Through various iterations, I've arrived at six tenets that I seek to live my life by:

• #1 Pursue Fearlessly, Embracing Failure as a Teacher

• #2 Connect and Engage With Relationships

• #3 Be Authentic

• #4 Allow Love

• #5 Experience Deeply

• #6 Go Public

The full journey and previous entries can be experienced HERE.

I recall in my 20's, that I didn't have goals that represented my deepest values. I wanted to get promoted. My focus was singular and pointed give it credit. And once I got there, I'd...I'd. Well, that's just it. I didn't know. The promotion was supposed to give me what I wanted. I soon found it would not. I wasn't shooting big enough. Or perhaps, I wasn't setting my destination based on a broader impact. I only hoped achieving the promotion would make me "right".

Now, I begin the fourth year in my fourth decade of my life. I am filled with so much gratitude for what I've experienced. And yet, I have much left to do. There is something powerful in that statement, for me. I realize I will not be able to accomplish everything that I'd like to do.

Or will I?

Here are some items on my "bucket list":

• Build my own business and life, something that helps and empowers others and that I can be proud of.
• Be present with my boys as they grow up. To Be There. To give them the space to fully emerge as their-selves.
• Provide my partner with a house that can accommodate her cooking machinery as well as her desire for sheep, chickens, and a vast garden.
• Run fifty marathons and eventually get into the ultra game (50-100 mile runs). I want to use everything my body has to give.
• Backpack in New Zealand.
• Do yoga on the beach at 5 AM in some distant, obscure location in the world.
• Speak in front of large groups of people.
• Help people to live the their most fulfilling life.
• Grow resources that I can leave behind me to teach young kids life skills and life coaching that is not taught in schools.
• Put out a record of the songs that I've never played for anyone, just to have it out there.
• Live in a warmer region of the country.
• Travel to Europe again as well as Japan, Africa, and Brazil.

Without a doubt, my scope has grown.

And so borne the question: Is the lens in which I view the experience of my life great enough?

This is the inquiry in which I find myself.

I'm taking steps to ensure that this is not coming from a place of scarcity such as "I haven't yet lived" or "I haven't lived enough." This inquiry comes from a place of abundance, connectedness, and openness.

Making It Big

In the personal development program I am in this year, my theme is "Making It Big." I must acknowledge the steps I've taken to this end. Yet what this truly means, is taking intentional action in line with my larger purpose. It means that each and every morsel of my existential energy should be expended towards this purpose. Generally, this purpose has to do with elevating human consciousness and experience. This is what I want to MAKE BIG.

Although this manifesto was created to solve for a personal experience, my concern has largely shifted to a more global experience. I am far less concerned with my personal experience and more concerned with having a greater impact on others.

I bring my children into a world wrought with uncertainty, danger, and confusion. I am compelled to demonstrate that this does not mean that spaces of comfort, safety, and clarity cannot exist. And this compulsion extends towards humanity at large.

Building On the Tenets

Failure

As I consider this shift from personal to global, I will build on the tenets I have set forth.

I believe that failure is a great teacher. With this in mind, I look around. Those who have failed and are still going strong, still building. These folks are who inspire me, these are my people. This realization causes materialism and societal pressures to fall away. Perseverance comes to the forefront.

We come to know great people after they've become great. But did anyone realize that J.K. Rowling was a great writer when she was getting denial after denial from publishers in the early days? Who would say she was great then?

Fail more. We should all fail more. Do what causes us to learn. Fail.

Engage in Relationships.

Many of us expend enormous amounts of our mental energy thinking of our personal relationships. What do they mean? Am I getting what I want from this?

We hold grudges, become codependent, and unhealthy. This all comes from a failure to fully and deeply engage in relationships.

Be Authentic.

We don't set boundaries. We don't say, "I don't like when you talk like that around me and I ask that you don't." We don't want to offend and instead are offended. We don't want to violate and instead we become violated.

The sad truth is, those closest to us don't even know us. We are trying to be what they want us to be. Though they are going through something similar. They aren't sure who they are and aren't often sure what they want us to be.

Engage, have the difficult conversation. If you fear something negative will come from it, realize that not engaging it is just kicking the can down the road. Leaving it to mount and grow in severity as time carries on.

Wouldn't it feel great to just be accepted as your authentic self? Start by voicing that authenticity to those who are the most important to you. This is the work of a relationship.

Allow Love.

What is it that we're scared of? Commitment? Does this mean that we're scared we wont follow through on our side? Or is it that we're still considering our options in the vast ocean of potential partners, friends, and family? If we're not allowing love, we're too lost in our own fantasy. We're not not making our lives, we're only dreaming them if we're not allowing love.

Experience Deeply.

Harness your attention and focus on what your doing. Whatever it is. It doesn't matter what you're doing.Get a hold of your mind and focus. Turn off your phone, the TV, the iPad. Connect with the moment. Right now.

Experience this moment deeply. The more we're wrapped up in the future and the past, the more we lose the right now. We lose our own experience and in this act, we lose the value of our own lives.

Go Public.

Help someone. Part of the healing path for many of us, is reaching out and helping others. We're nurturers. Do something that makes someone else grow. You'll grow with them.

You may not have realized it, but the above is the turning outward of my manifesto tenets. This is what it may look like to globalize this experience for the masses.

Verbs

 Run, Build, Be, Backpack, Provide, Do, Speak, Help, Grow, Put out, Live, and Travel.

These are the verbs that start each item on my "Bucket List".

Even if the outcome never comes to pass, I am inspired by what I can do.

I will run.

I will build.

I will be.

I will backpack.

I will provide.

I will do.

I will speak.

I will help.

I will grow.

I will publish.

I will live.

I will travel.

Transformation and emergence is in the being of these verbs, not in the doing.

This is my year for sure.