Waypoint 017
Self-awareness at 60 is teaching me that living a long, diverse life doesn't mean I have fully understood it. I have carried experiences, pain, and old beliefs for years without always recognizing their influence.
In this Personal Log, I reflect on what intentional living means in the second half of life: pausing to understand the journey behind me and choosing what I want to carry forward.
It Took Me 60 Years to Realize How Little I Knew.
At sixty, I am beginning to understand how much of my life I lived without truly understanding myself. This part of my intentional living journey asks me to look beyond what happened and notice what I am still carrying.
If you had asked me in my thirties, I would have told you I had life figured out.
I would have had an answer, an opinion, and probably some advice for you, too.
I had already lived enough to believe I understood how the world worked. What I did not realize was how much remained unexplored within me.
There were things I could explain about life that I could not yet recognize in my own behavior.
A Long Journey, a Heavy Load.
I have lived a long and diverse life. I travelled, met all kinds of people, and experienced places and opportunities that gave me stories I still enjoy telling. I took more than my fair share of risks. Some paid off. Others cost me.
I worked hard, made some money, and wasted plenty of it too. I raised children, enjoyed good company, and had moments of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. Much of the time, I did what I thought I wanted to do. I remember parts of that journey with a smile.
There were also mistakes, struggles, and circumstances that were not easy to get through. All of it, the good times and the difficult ones, became part of the experience I carry.
And I have plenty of experience.
But, I am learning that experience does not automatically become understanding.
For years, I carried the pain of what I had lived through without finding the peace that could come from working through it. I understood much less about how it influenced my thoughts, reactions, and choices.
I believed something was behind me simply because it had happened a long time ago, but I could react to what was happening in front of me while carrying feelings that belonged somewhere else.
Time had passed. Some of the weight remained.
The Bags I Never Unpacked.
