YOU ARE ALWAYS ON THE CLOCK. You were born at a certain moment in time, and time moves you along just like a merry-go-round—without your help and whether you like it or not. You can’t speed it up or slow it down.
Here’s a question: If you had to select one age you think is PERECT, which age would it be? Everyone has their favorite age, but usually I hear, “I’d like the body of this age, but I want to keep what I know from that age.â€
I used to think 25 was the perfect age. In fact, I cried the day I turned 30, because I thought my life was over. How many of us could write a book about the times we felt our lives were over? Yet, we’re still here.
I like the visual of a clock to imagine age. The traditional analog clock is shaped in a circle. In grade school we were taught that the full circle of the clock is an hour of time. Imagine that one trip around the dial of the clock can also represent a lifetime.
We “clock in†at birth (think 12 on the clock), and the one position represents 10 years of age, the two, 20, and so on down to 50. Most of us feel that 50 is significant—a magical halfway point. Then, imagine the rest of the years (60 to 100) represented as the hand moves upward past the 7, 8, 9 through 12.
Of course, not all of us will make it to 100, which I’ve always thought was too bad because Grandma used to say, “The first hundred years are the worst.”
When we look at time this way, we can see that even at 50 or 60, potentially, we have decades to go. So how will we use our time?
When you’re on the upswing of the clock, you realize it’s now or never. It’s alway that way, but in speaking to 20 years olds, they speak of having their whole life ahead of them, where someone 80 and 90 years old speaks in terms of the life they’ve lived. I find this interesting.
We are always on the clock yet, age is not a disease, it’s simply YOUR moment in time.
Stepping into a new decade can seem a little freighting because feels like new territory. I found a great analogy for this concept in an article in the May/June issue of the Desert Shamrock (https://www.facebook.com/desertshamrock/). When medieval map makers labeled parts of the globe that hadn’t been explored, they simply wrote: “Here be dragons.†And doesn’t that describe age for some of us?
Niamh, who is the 30 year old from You are the Perfect Age says it best, “I’m, scared and excited to find out what this next decade has in store for me, but I’m strapped in and ready to take the next ride.â€
When we face a new decade or any other time, I like to remember Helen Keller’s words “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.â€
Success comes to us when we stop thinking of ourselves as women who are working “against the clock†and we quit working “around the clock.†We all need to step away every now and then to play like a child again, to celebrate our survival, to refresh our spirits and to take note of where we’ve been and where we want to go. Each day we are living our own tailor-made perfect age.
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To read more from the women we interviewed, age 10-1oo, order You are the Perfect Age on Amazon  at http://a.co/av8UgJQ.