Happy Birthday to me...I guess........ =(

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Norm_The_Robot

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I am 38 today. I am happy I have made it this far and have so far achieved a pretty good percentage of the components that seem to collectivly make up the “American Dream”. My family and I have mot achieved everything but I’d say we are doing pretty well considering thecurrent state of things. There was an LA radio host late last century who went by the name Mr. KABC and later by Mr. KFI who, when asked how he was doing by callers, stated “Better than most, not as good as some.” I guess I could say roughly the same thing about the state of my life so far.
But one thing I think about often is that the time in your life when you free to have adventures and stuff is so short and those years really do go by in the blink of an eye. Before you know it you are happily married, raising a family and have lots of trying to make end meet type of stuff on your plate that preclude anything else you are intrested in.
I guess you could call it mid life crisis, but I am not talking about buying a tupee and a sports car so I can chase young girls around. It is just that there are so many things I want to know, places I want to go and so many things I want to do that I know will never happen. Like in that Movie UP. By the time your kids are grown and you have a certain amount of freedom back you are to old to physicaly do what you wanted to do. Already, if suddenly had the time and money to get into a few of the (martial arts related) things I would like to do I probably could not due to a broken ankle and a broken finger that I suffered this year.
SOmetimes my wife tells me I had my chance to do everything I wanted to do when I was in my early twenties, before we got married. She is both right and wrong because I did all the things I wanted to do at the time, but now that I am older there are so many things I did not know about when I was younger, things I never realized I could have done if I wanted.
But I am happy with the way my life has turned out. I just don’t like the fact that it is (hopefuly) half way over and I am running out of time. One lifetime is truly not enough to accomplish all that there is to accomplish and have all the adventures that are to be had!
Happy Birthday to me…I guess… =(
 
Happy birthday Norm the Robot!

I am of a similar age with a family, and at times feel similar constraints, so I understand what you mean.

One thing to consider, from a perhaps trite, cliched spiritual perspective, is that nothing we miss out on in this life will matter at all when (if) we meet God in heaven. Don’t worry about this life, worry about the next one.
 
I hear ya. I’m having some of those same thoughts at 41.

Happy Birthday! 😃
 
Hey Norm!
I just turned 40. And I’m going to be a bit of a jerk right now, sorry. I’m not married and likely never will be. I have been researching online and in books for a few years about why I have failed in dating. It turns out that it’s because I’m short! No, seriously, women for the most part won’t date men less than 5’10". I’m 5’7". 70% of women said they would not date a man less than 6’. I know, I know, you’ll say it’s not that bad, there’s someone out there, or don’t believe what you read online. The problem is, I have been very careful in my research, and from what I’ve discovered, no woman (Catholic or otherwise) is capable of loving me. Actually, there is a very strong possibility, that your wife is considering leaving you or is contemplating an affair. Especially if she is 3-4 years younger than you. I also just found out that my employer has been screwing me on my pay, and it was completely legal. I have no rights concerning it. My mortgage is upside down by $40,000 and I cannot refinance because of it. I’d go on, but I think you get the idea.
I’m looking at the rest of my life as being completely dark. I see a future that is mostly pain. I keep moving forward. You need to be thankful for what you have. I am jealous of men like you. I see you walk down the street, and my heart dies a little. I know God will see me through the suffering that confronts me, but you, someone who has what I have always dreamed of, need to turn your eyes away from what “might have been”, because you could have been me. And you may still become me, so be very careful where you set that gaze…it is where you will start moving to.
 
Happy birthday and many more in good health.:🙂 As my mother always says, “It’s better to grow older than not grow older.”
 
XwhY said:
It turns out that it’s because I’m short! No, seriously, women for the most part won’t date men less than 5’10". I’m 5’7".
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I’m 5’8’’. So either 1’’ makes all the difference, or you’re wrong.

Actually, I have friends shorter than me (not many to be fair) who are very happily married, so I know you are wrong.
XwhY said:
Actually, there is a very strong possibility, that your wife is considering leaving you or is contemplating an affair.
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What a cyncial, baseless, and unneccessary comment.
XwhY said:
…but you, someone who has what I have always dreamed of, need to turn your eyes away from what “might have been”
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This is fair enough. We should all be thankful for what we do have. As the OP said himself (siting another), I’m doing “Better than most”.
 
Well first off Happy Birthday Norm.

Now what is this pity party about not being able to do things because you are getting older. I will submit that my husband and I are over 50 but not yet 60, while hubby is just a little overweight he is healthy, myself is a different story I have spinal fusion, Rheumatoid Arthritis and have nerve damage in my leg 24 hours a day. While I can’t run, jump or do Judo when I was healthy. I do pretty much anything I feel I can do (though I will not jump out a perfectly good airplane) and my Dr says do what you think you can do. We what ever moves us, we are more active then my son and DIL who have no children.

We look for free things, like hiking is a great free activity. You want to do Martial Arts, well hate to tell you, that broken bones are just part of Martial Arts no matter what age you are. You can get video’s from the library to practice with until you can afford the classes you want. I have broken all my toes at least once when I was taking Judo before my health issues. But then I found a cheap Tai Chi class through the local continuing education, and found Youtube videos to use to keep up with what I wanted to do. Guess what I broke a toe doing that, no biggie other then hobbling for a couple of days.

If you want to travel, travel and take the kids. Find a used Tent, camping is one of the cheapest and most fun way to travel. Not to mention that it the kids will love it and will actually get an education from the experience. Tight budget, well look for things you had to have and now you or someone else doesn’t use and sell it to make money. Or get a job one day a week to bring in extra money. You just need to be discipline in your spending and saving. Coupons are a great way to save extra money, when money was very tight I would take what I saved using coupons and put it in an account to do things with.

So just think age as just another number that you have to remember. And the saying

Use it or lose it holds true. Be it your brain or body. Also if you think you can’t, then you won’t be able to. Negativity begets Negativity, now gather up the family and take a walk around the block. 🙂
 
What HopenHappiness said!

In my twenties I hitchhiked through Europe and Morocco, published a book, traveled back and forth across the US several times.
My only regret is that I never learned to skateboard. I plan to skateboard like crazy when I get to heaven. I’d do it now but I can’t afford any broken bones since I’m the only one working.
38 is still pretty young. You can do almost anything you want to Take up a less strenuous martial arts program, like Tai chi.
We can’t do everything, as you point out. I’m 70. I hope to finish my trilogy (see below) before I kick off or lose my memory totally. Every day is a new adventure. Who knows what Jesus has in store for you? His thoughts for you are for good, and not for evil.
 
XwhY said:
Hey Norm!
I just turned 40. And I’m going to be a bit of a jerk right now, sorry. I’m not married and likely never will be. I have been researching online and in books for a few years about why I have failed in dating. It turns out that it’s because I’m short! No, seriously, women for the most part won’t date men less than 5’10". I’m 5’7". 70% of women said they would not date a man less than 6’. I know, I know, you’ll say it’s not that bad, there’s someone out there, or don’t believe what you read online. The problem is, I have been very careful in my research, and from what I’ve discovered, no woman (Catholic or otherwise) is capable of loving me. Actually, there is a very strong possibility, that your wife is considering leaving you or is contemplating an affair. Especially if she is 3-4 years younger than you. I also just found out that my employer has been screwing me on my pay, and it was completely legal. I have no rights concerning it. My mortgage is upside down by $40,000 and I cannot refinance because of it.** I’d go on, but I think you get the idea. **
I’m looking at the rest of my life as being completely dark. I see a future that is mostly pain. I keep moving forward. You need to be thankful for what you have. I am jealous of men like you. I see you walk down the street, and my heart dies a little. I know God will see me through the suffering that confronts me, but you, someone who has what I have always dreamed of, need to turn your eyes away from what “might have been”, because you could have been me. And you may still become me, so be very careful where you set that gaze…it is where you will start moving to.
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OP, this is about as good a sermon on the attractiveness of a glass-too-empty attitude you are likely to run across.

Xwhy, you deserve to have the joy of knowing you are loved by God and that the love and example of Christ can see you through any circumstance whatsoever:

*Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you…I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me. *Phil 4:4-9, 12-13

I say this from the vantage point of over 50. God wants you to have more than you are allowing yourself, and the “more” isn’t something that has to do with comparing yourself to what someone else has.
 
Viki63 said:
What HopenHappiness said!

In my twenties I hitchhiked through Europe and Morocco, published a book, traveled back and forth across the US several times.
My only regret is that I never learned to skateboard. I plan to skateboard like crazy when I get to heaven. I’d do it now but I can’t afford any broken bones since I’m the only one working.
38 is still pretty young. You can do almost anything you want to Take up a less strenuous martial arts program, like Tai chi.
We can’t do everything, as you point out. I’m 70. I hope to finish my trilogy (see below) before I kick off or lose my memory totally. Every day is a new adventure. Who knows what Jesus has in store for you? His thoughts for you are for good, and not for evil.
Click to expand...
You know, that would make a great thread “what will you do in heaven that you didn’t get to do in your time on earth”

Skateboarding - that is great! No broken bones in heaven.😃
 
Happy Birthday, Norm the Robot!

Any relation to Marvin, the robot in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy,” by Douglas Adams? Marv was always depressed, and little wonder since he was exceedingly intelligent and yet nobody gave him any respect at all. His masters had sent him on so many foolish errands, traveling through time back and forth over billions of years, that in the end he was several times older than the universe itself.

In So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, he tells how over those years, every single component in his body had been replaced, everything… except one little diode that had always caused his arm to ache. He had often asked to have it replaced so that he could be free of the constant pain, and the diode would have cost only five cents, but did his masters ever see fit to replace it? No.

Anyway, there was one thing that finally made Marvin feel good. At the very end of his life, he read God’s Final Message to His Creation, which was written in perpetually blazing letters along the crest of a remote mountain range:
“We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Upon reading it, Marvin croaked “I think I feel good about it,” and then the lights went out in his eyes for the very last time.

Getting back to you and me and the real world… I went to a talk recently where the speaker said something like this: Don’t live on expectations, because that leads to disappointment. Instead, orient yourself toward objectives, and, I might add, choose your objectives wisely. Life’s currents and storms will push your little boat off its intended course. If things don’t turn out the way you had planned, don’t be bitter. Work to make it better. Keep steering toward your objectives. Maybe you will reach them. Maybe you’ll discover some place along the way that is just as nice, or better.

I wish you all the best on your voyage.
 
Happy birthday!

I turned 38 a few months ago and the realization that I am probably half way through my life scared me. So many doors are shut now, the options are gone. I’m too old to achieve certain things. I’m married and have children and my life will always be centred around that. And I still yearn for adventures.

I think it is really important to be grounded in reality. My life is good, just like yours. I had a great youth and my 20s especially were a lot of fun. I have achieved a lot AND my life is far from over. Sure, there are things I can’t do because I have no time and money is spent on other things, but I suspect I will be able to do fun stuff in the future as I get new interests and hobbies. I suspect that when I’m 70 I won’t be interested in a 200 km pilgrimage to Santiago de Campostela, just like now I am not really keen on some things I used to find fun 10 years ago.
 
EasterJoy said:
OP, this is about as good a sermon on the attractiveness of a glass-too-empty attitude you are likely to run across.

Xwhy, you deserve to have the joy of knowing you are loved by God and that the love and example of Christ can see you through any circumstance whatsoever:

*Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you…I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me. *Phil 4:4-9, 12-13

I say this from the vantage point of over 50. God wants you to have more than you are allowing yourself, and the “more” isn’t something that has to do with comparing yourself to what someone else has.
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As I scrolled through I was forming a comment for you but as often happens Easterjoy has pretty much made it already. Must be the over 50’s factor.

Each stage of life presents a riddle that when all is said and done… is pretty universal, Norm. I remember your phase and thank God He kept me focused through the pain. There is contentment and calm seas to come if you stick to your basic principles no matter what life throws at you.

I look at my mother in her late 70’s now. She has a full time job taking care of Dad with dementia but not a day goes by that she doesn’t find something to laugh about. She looks forward to finally knowing the joy of eternal life now without fear or regret. Her witness makes me unafraid of my future too.

Travel well and always tend the garden of your marriage and family through it all.
 
" Actually, there is a very strong possibility, that your wife is considering leaving you or is contemplating an affair. Especially if she is 3-4 years younger than you"

Lucky for me, I am six feet tall and my wife is 2 years older than me!

Thanks for all the responses. I am feeling better already! I know I have alot to be thankful for already and my family is always number one. I’ll just have to find a way to live vicariously through my kids! 😉
 
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