Reflection before I turn 30: Become (Week 14 - Final Week)

The city is vibrant.

Life is vibrant in the city.

Smelling the New York City air; hearing the sounds of taxi cab drivers furiously honking at traffic; and people marching along the streets makes me feel like seizing the day. The day should be seized, and every opportunity we have as I don't know when this day could be my last.

Alas, I never thought I would turn 30 years old as my last decade has taught me a lot. It has taught me to survive. It has taught me to thrive among life's adversities and enemies. It has taught me to earn what is mine. It has taught me more about me - like life in the city, ever changing.

As each decade passes we learn more about ourselves. As Carrie Bradshaw said "Your 20’s are to make mistakes, your 30’s are to learn your lessons and your 40’s are to pay for the drinks."  

Though I like that Bradshaw was correct that I made mistakes in my 20's and the object of my 30's is to learn from those mistakes, I don't think I will be passing any drinks in my 40's - literally. Hence, I came up with a modified quote regarding the way we age. 

Play. Discover. Mistakes. Become.

Childhood – We play to learn during our childhood years.

Teenager – We discover to learn during our teenage years.

20s – We make mistakes to learn what makes us, us.

30s – We take what we learned from the previous decades; and become who we were meant to be. 

Today, I turn into who I was meant to become. It is our experiences that show us the path we need to follow. Each day is seized as an opportunity to learn. If we don't learn from these mistakes, we are repeating them. George Santaya, 19th-century poet and philosopher, said it best when he quoted: "If you don't learn from your mistakes, you are condemned to repeat them." 

This journey couldn't have been possible for the people who have made it worthwhile. In life we just don't make mistakes by ourselves, we learn how to improve as we interact with other people. People are the substance towards making our lives worthwhile.

I hope to become a better person from friends, family and acquaintances. I don't know everything, and as Henry David Thoreau quoted, "Someone is always your superior." 

My success stems from the help that others give me. I am humble that I realize that I could never achieve goals without the people in my life. But, I become great when I can include people along my life journey.

I hope to learn from you. Grow from you. Ultimately, becoming the man that I need to become for you. Our journey is worthless without family and friends. They should mean the world. I hope that as I include them in this journey that when I turn 40 that I can pass the drinks around - figuratively.  

Cheers to you, my friends and my family. Cheers to the new decade. Cheers on becoming the man that I am meant to become. Today, I turn 30!

Journal's note: This is the last reflection in this series. I am grateful for the people that have journeyed this life with me. I will be posting more blogs in the future, and I look forward to others reading my blog. As I have stated in a previous blog post, I use this blog improving upon my craft. Thank you everyone, and I love you all!