THE THING ABOUT US : THE MIDDLE AGE - BEING ACTIVE

Some people said that when we reach a certain age, its best to lay back and take it easy and watch the world goes by since by this time we had achieved most of our dreams. We are to be satisfied of what we have, they said.

To pursue other life changing decisions that involves a huge and complete makeover of our life at this middle age juncture for example, like changing careers, will be avoided. Passion and drives that once guided us during our younger years were lost or simmered away over time. Some said responsibilities and priorities takes precedence over everything else. And that somehow took away our zeal and passion of doing what we used to love.

Life's paces getting slower. And it will slowly become dull, regimented and boring, down the road.

The sad thing about all this is, it is a true fact.

The other thing about all this, is that we always have a choice. We can choose to lay back, relax and enjoy our life as what it is or we can get up and pursue whatever other things that we desire.

I am not saying that we have to throw away our comfortable life. Far from it. Rather, the comfortable life that we are enjoying is the advantage for us to indulge in whatever things that we want and choose to do. If we don't have enough funds before, perhaps now, at this age, we have the financial means to again explore our hidden desires, buried years ago at the back of our mind.

If we don't have the luxury of time when our children were still toddlers and babies, now that they have grown up into fine young person and can take care of themselves, we could at last claim back that precious `me' time again.

Perhaps now, at this age, we should give a serious thought about that lingering, buried desires.

We could also seek alternative, additional something to do , to make our regimented and boring life more interesting. For sure, there must be something more to this life than the one we live right now. Things that we are capable of doing. Things that we can look forward to every single time. Things that excites us.

A friend of mine took out diving. He is now a licensed diving instructor beside his professional career. He is 41 years old.

Another friend of mine, in his 42 years of age, completed his first full marathon in a respectable time. He is running marathons all the time.

And yet another friend of mine is active in mountain biking and adventure sports. He is 41 years old.

We can be active, even at this age.

Apart from keeping healthy, I took up exercising so that I can do stuff with my daughters. I wanted to be the father who teach his daughters how to ride bicycles, not the father who simply bought the bicycles and left it on their own. One of the proudest moment for me was when all my daughters managed to ride their bicycles on their own, without training wheels or any help from me or my love one. The youngest did it about a month ago at the age of 5 years old.

Things like that. It dont even have to be sports. Whatever our interest are.

Getting old doesn't mean that we have to stop doing everything we enjoyed in the past. Burning passion can be rekindled.

Take up guitar lessons, if that what was once we aspired. Or go scuba diving, if we cant afford to do it back them.

We have all the time in the world to do it if we want to.

The only thing that stopping us is our never ending pathetic and lame excuses.