The Simple Truth of Turning 30

My parents were in their early 30’s when I was born, a period that I cannot believe that I am fast approaching in my own life (and no, this is not a pregnancy announcement, but more of a realization announcement). Growing up, I was incredibly blessed to have had a stable and loving home that allowed me to enjoy all the wonders of childhood. I remember looking at my parents in awe, wondering if one day I too would know how to navigate life on my own and terrified by how complicated it all seemed. Then suddenly, I was flung into a self-centred and turbulent stage of adolescence, followed by a period of self-discovery and experimentation in my early 20’s. Amazingly I came out on the other side of my younger days relatively unscathed, having found a more stable and grounded sense of identity in my late 20’s. Today I am finally ready to take on the title of adult and confront the complexities of life with a simple truth.

I could most certainly write an entire book about those earlier stages, with all the turbulence and self-discovery that one encounters throughout those prominent years. However, I will save those stories for another time and today, on the eve of my 30^th birthday, share some of the lessons I have learned from years of growing, learning, and living on the roller coaster that has been the past 3 decades:

1. Context reveals peace and clarity – After years of egocentric living as an adolescent and young adult, peace was finally attained when I shifted my focus outward from the self towards the larger context of connectedness. Mother Teresa says, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” When we view every situation solely in relation to the self, we miss out on the interwoven stories of others that we are also a part of. Being able to recognize the larger context in which we exist helps to clarify the whys of seemingly unfair situations and releases us from the “why me?” of narrow, self-focused living.
2. Your body is a temple that needs tending – I remember one crazy summer when I worked 2 jobs, was taking an art class, and doing hot yoga every day. It was a time when my body was unstoppable and my energy stores ran deep. Today, my need for an extra cup of coffee, a few more hours of sleep, and good ergonomics is undeniable. Through this sobering shift, my understanding of the body has grown from merely being an afterthought into one of respect and partnership. The body is a map of the past, present and future; a gift from your ancestors and a divine mystery of creation. As such, it deserves and needs to be cared for, understood, and valued as an important part of how we experience life. Yoga Girl (aka Rachel Brathen) explains that “My body is connected to my emotions. My emotions are connected to my thoughts. My thoughts are connected to my ability to stay present. And my ability to stay present is connected to my body.”
3. Time speeds up with its own passage – I used to waste the days away without a care in the world. Time was a vast and never ending desert that I had my whole life to traverse. However, somehow in the blink of an eye that desert has transformed into a high-speed highway without an off-ramp in sight. The days fly by as I try to schedule and manipulate every second I have to keep up with all the have-to’s and should-do’s that clutter up the day-to-day. However, time is not a dimension that we are meant to control without intense stress; rather it is a reality we are free to climb on in order to better enjoy the view on the ride of life. For when Alice asks the white rabbit in Wonderland, “How long is forever?” The white rabbit responds, “Sometimes just one second.”
4. Everything is subject to change– My first year as a Public Health Nurse was one of intense learning and growing up. I was no longer a student who could hide behind the certainty of books and scheduled classes. I needed to figure out how to navigate the working world of office politics, waiting for vacation time, and going with the flow; for as a very wise colleague would always remind me, “everything is subject to change.” This I have come to realize is true in every facet of life including our relationships, the environment, the economy, and our priorities. This fact has led me to the practice of the Beginner’s Mind, the freedom from getting stuck in the expectations of past experience. It is an attitude that accepts change with openness and curiosity. Studying the works of Jon Kabat-Zinn has helped me to better understand and embrace this way of being which “allows us to be receptive to new possibilities and prevents us from getting stuck in the rut of our own expertise, which often thinks it knows more than it does.”
5. Love is all you need – This is by far the simplest but most important lesson I have learned, period. Monetary success, job titles, and fancy things are all ways that we as humans create stress through competition, arrogance, and egocentricity. Putting all these above relationship is what fuels the endless rat race many of us are trying to find rest from. We have a tendency to complicate life by over-crowding it with all the wants and shoulds that quickly become our top priorities. But what I have come to appreciate with age, especially as time speeds up and everything keeps changing, is that the one constant I can cling to and be comforted by is love. Money, jobs, and stuff are not bad things in and of themselves, but when we think they are the ultimate be-all-and-end-all behind our efforts, it becomes easy to lose context of the bigger picture: our connectedness to one another. I always find it tragic how humans can take this truth and distort it over and over again through the corruption of religion and politics by exploiting others all in the name of power. However, I believe that the solution is simple, free and available to all in every situation: love one another (John 13: 34-35). That’s it. Period. And so, just as The Beatles sang, revolutionaries in their own right, “All you need is love.”