“A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.” – Carl Jung

I recently began a significant journey.  I crossed a boundary … a mental construct having self-imposed meaning.  I became 70.

Equipped with 70 years of life experience, each moment now is different as I reflect on the sum of my years … reflect on the collection of moments comprising my life that now are blended into a unique tapestry of “ME”… something like living life in the moment while surrounded by a symphony playing music expressing the emotions and feelings of my life journey of 7 decades.

As my life clock turned to this new number, I initially felt the need for renewed directional clarity.  Experience formed by steps and missteps along my life journey and reflecting many, many changes within me left me feeling the need to identify and refocus on purpose and path.  Things had changed.  Seven decades produced a man much different than earlier images formed in my youth … much different than ever anticipated or visualized in early years.  Feelings were pushing me to believe a pivotal transition was imminent, demanding attention and fresh modeling to insure the best life lived until I crossed my final horizon.

Then a conversation with a loved, trusted friend offered a new, less complex model for each step along my unfolding path.  “Live like an explorer” my inner voice now urges.  This voice also urges me to partner with change, wear it as my cloak, and embrace it to seek out that which is new and unanticipated.  I’m reminded to use my feelings as my compass … use them as nectar to feed my soul and renew my spirit.  Fully live as an explorer, poised and eager to step into the unknown simply for the adventure of it all.  It’s a theme playing louder and louder, catching my attention, causing a shift, and signaling its importance in my life matrix going forward.

Though I am no expert, I realize that as years increase the ease of clinging tighter to past feelings increases.  The security of the “known” is seductive but when seen clearly reveals its inherent limitations.  So, I must lovingly resist the “known” … the seductive pull towards comfort … and push into directions demanding I embrace change and the unknown.  Where feelings offer the only guidance.  It’s what explorers do.

So, I now stand imprinted and marked with new, more fitting direction.  I’m now dressed and packed to venture into new uncharted territory and motivated by the excitement of adventure and its inherent quest for feelings.  Yes, I stand at this moment of transition … a moment when choices now move me into the newly focused life I seek, one offering this explorer moments … moments igniting his soul … moments tied together by the thread of time and filling his heart with feelings of a joyful life well lived.  Yes, I am the sum of where I have traveled but I now reset the counter and enjoy creating a new, fresh sum from which to enter the new decades awaiting me.  And it all feels good … it all feels right …