My Thoughts on Turning 31

“When I turned 30 the first thing I did was watch the sunrise over the water, while in The Keys. Who knew that the sunrise I saw that morning, was the sunrise that showed me a way past the horizon and onto a new adventure in life. Now and forever I will always look to chase that sunrise.” ~ Gregory Modé

When one turns older you start to go through that phase in life when you start putting things in perspective. You look at your own mortality as if it was a fragile egg in your hand, worried that any tremor, ding, bump or accident will cause it harm. You look at past and current accomplishment and compare them to other people. Sometimes you feel proud of yourself, other times you feel like you are limping behind the pack.

You look around at all your material wealth, the people around you, where you are at that moment in time and wonder out loud, “Is this it? How many times can I get by and be lucky, before my luck runs out?”

And there’s that one question everyone seems to ask. “What is my purpose in this world? Do I have a role to play, a part to play on this stage?”

Too much do we look to the future and worry of things that have yet to be and too many times we look at the past and try to grasp at wisps of memories of the way things use to be. Yet we always forget to live in the present. We do not take the time to sit down and enjoy that sunrise every morning. To appreciate the little things that life has to offer.

No matter how you dress it up…

I am 31 years old.

I have been alive for 11,334 days

For 272,016 hours, my eyes have seen many life events, some happy some sad.

And it was not until I hit 30 and I saw that sunrise, that I finally understood what the meaning of life truly was.

Being Thirty...

Looks like as of tomorrow it will be my birthday and fortunately/unfortunately I will be the ripe old age of thirty.  Ahh the dreaded thirty. Now most people would be off in a corner somewhere, cowering, crying about how the days of old have passed them by and that what lies ahead is nothing but misery, aching bones and eating jell-o in a nursing home. (though the whole jell-o thing does not sound as bad as they make it out to be).

But what I plan to do on my thirty is start re-living life on my terms.  By actually going out and finding and creating adventures. This year I'll be spending my birthday traveling to Key West. I thought to myself, "Hey Greg, you don't know how to swim...so let's place you in a place that is literally surrounded by water."[Side note: I will have a life jacket on, I have been trying to psych myself up that all I will do is just jump in the water and instinctively start swimming. If not, well luckily I will have someone there to grab me if I should fail.]

Even though I might want to groan and gripe about being thirty, I really don't have anything to gripe about. Physically I'm thinner and in better shape than when I was in high school. I'm active and focused. I have a great small circle of friends and feel that things can only get better. And have a list of goals and things I want to accomplish as fast as I can.

Just because a birthday signifies another year passing, doesn't mean we have to sit there and stare at the sand in the hourglass waiting for that last grain to drop. Birthday are like mile makers on a jogging route. They are there to remind us how far we've made it and to know there's more to come.

So I raise a glass to my thirtieth...and hope to experience many more.