Most people merely laugh and cry while pouring over 1000’s of photos when packing up to move. This deep thinker took it to another level, wondering if Socrates would have included the usefulness of photographs and videos in his idiom that the “unexamined life is not worth living”.
Do reminiscing and self-examination go hand-in-hand?
How often do we reminisce? Does this lead to assessing where we’ve been, the consequences of our choices, and determining how we will live out the rest of our lives?
In business classes over the years, the older students would tell me they hadn’t ever completed personal goal-planning and found the simple exercise to be rather challenging. At work with Human Resources, job-planning became routine and meaningless for them (and me). But, in real life? They believed the personal assessments were time well-spent. After completion, they felt extremely inspired to live without having to attend a Tony Robbins seminar.
Other than during pivotal life moments such as moving, we often forget where we started and about personal goals. Earning and raising a family doesn’t leave much frivolous time for individual pursuits.
Yet, seated on my dining room floor, a foot-deep in papers and photos, I see the bigger picture and how my personal goals shifted once I became a mother. My life was given to my family and through that decision, a new, little clan, tribe, society was built.
Jesus made it clear that sacrifice of self is the walk. Jordan Peterson adds: “It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality.” (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos) A productive and meaningful life for me was derived in the family, in our home.
I can sometimes be self critical about not having achieved more. Sitting on the floor viewing our precious memories in photos, I know the greatest part of life really is love.
All three of my adult kids told me they love me today. We regularly spend time together. I look down at the hard-laugher in the Kodak prints in front of me, and read the loving words written to me in Crayola, in poems, in greeting cards. What more could I want? This right here is everything.
Tales from a Mid-Lifer 
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