On Turning 40 - Part Two - "Letting Things Go"

I've decided that I will never be a professional baseball player. As things go, this was a relatively easy decision to come to. I've also decided that I will never compete in a grueling Eco-Challenge. Unless things drastically change, I will probably never climb Half-Dome, nor Mt. Kilimanjaro (though there is still hope of summiting Mt. Kenya) - and I don't know why that hurts.

Through much of the first 20 years of our life, our perception of the length and breadth of the world is controlled by our surroundings. If we come from a well-off family, our perception might include skiing in Vale, yearly trips to Europe, and a boarding school on the East Coast, but probably doesn't include slums. If we're middle -class and well traveled, we might have a more pedestrian view of much the same things, but we probably had to work harder to see that world. If we're poor, often, our view of the world is limited to an area around where we grew up.

But once we become "adults" our perception of the world changes and at some point, we realize that the only boundaries on our world are the ones we create for ourselves. I know people that have literally traveled to every single corner of this globe. But beyond travel, our perception of opportunities also open up. We feel that there is no reason why we might not some day walk on the moon, or climb Mt. Everest, or learn how to scuba dive, or swim with dolphins.

Of course, the hard realities of growing up is that those things cost money, and time, and dedication and there are other resources in our life that clamor for those things as well. As much as we'd like to do them all, reality tells us that we will have to pick and choose... or delay.

I've always felt that eventually I would get to those tasks - that I would gain that adventure - someday. But 40 has made me start to reevaluate my life. Odds are that I only have another 40 years or so to go, and I want to make the most of those 40 years. I don't want to wait for adventure to find me, I want to seek it out.

Kenya is part of this, to be sure. But so is making films. One of the things I said about making the film last year was that no matter what, on my 40th birthday, I would be able to look back and say, "Last year at this time, I was making my first movie."

So looking for things to do and then doing them is part of this equation, but there is the other part of it as well. Looking at things that maybe I once thought about doing and have always kept in the back of my mind as possibilities, and letting them go. Fwoosh! Goodbye...

No more Ultimate Sequels, Andy. ;) Probably never going to be the full fledged President of a major studio. Will likely never work for Disney. Not going to ever run for President. Losing all desire for ever having kids (but will certainly work to make sure all the abandoned ones are loved and taken care of).

And also, saying goodbye to things in my past. I sent a Happy Birthday notice to my ex today and made sure to note that it would be my last communication with her. Goodbye. High School was fun, but it ended years ago and I have little desire to see anyone from that era that I don't already see. Goodbye. Youth Group... time to let the younger people figure that one out. Adios.

So, its time to embrace the new and throw out the old. I'm going to get to a serious cleaning of my attic this weekend. I'm getting rid of all the old books that I have yet to get around to reading and never will. I'm throwing away the nostalgia that means nothing to me now (if it ever did) and all the little knickknacks from years past that are doing wonders clogging up space in my closet. If I can figure out a way to convert these things into cash for my trip to Kenya, even better. If not, then hello recycling center or Goodwill.

I'm not going to throw away my past, just unclutter it. With all that junk taking up space, I just have no room for new things. And I've got another 40 years of stuff to accumulate - adventures, relationships, and memories.

Goodbye past, hello future.