Aging is a natural, beautiful part of life. With age comes wisdom, experiences, memories, growth, love and pain, laughter and tears and, of course, many birthdays. But birthdays should not be the only cause for celebration of our age. There are many reasons to celebrate your age. These are just a few of them.

Reasons to Celebrate Age!

It’s a shame that aging has gotten such a bad reputation in today’s society. In eastern cultures age is a celebration of life and wellness and wisdom and elders are considered the most holy and sacred members of society. They are sought after and asked to share their wisdom, they are respected and looked after and they are proud to be one year older as each year passes. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, age is just a number, is it not? There are so many reasons to celebrate the fact that while you may be a bit older, you can still live as though you are young at heart.

Gratitude

Celebrating your age is a way to say thank you. Thank you to all of the people and places that have brought you to where you are today. Thank you to all of the days that have been gracious enough to keep you here walking and breathing on this earth. Thank you for the gift of life!!! Your life is a gift. The moment you were brought into this world and every single moment since has been a gift. Celebrate age: it is a way to say thank you. Many people die far too young. Life gets taken away from them at an early age and their family members are left feeling robbed and cheated. If you are reading this, you are lucky. You are blessed. You have a life that you are invited to live into and lean into every single day. Are you grateful for that? Are you leaning in?

Direction

Celebrating your age is a great way to remember where you have been. It can also help you navigate where you need to go and how you want to get there. You have learned from your past experiences. What are they telling you now? One of the best things to do every New Years is to rent a cabin in the woods and take all of your journal entries from the previous years with you. Look through where you have been and what you been through because things start to become apparent, like what your tendencies are, what is being narrated throughout your mind, habits you keep falling into, major breakthrough’s that you have had and so much more. In order to know where we are going, we have to know where we have been. Celebrating your age can help you find your bearings and purpose in life. Your life is full and rich. You have a feast of experiences and mountains beyond mountains of stories that walk with you and live within you. Where will they take you? What will you do with your one sacred and precious life?

Mind Over Matter

Imagine how rich your life would be if you started focusing on having a young mindset instead of getting older. In reality, age is just a way to mark our physical time on earth. Measuring our age is no different than measuring the cycle of the moon or the distance from Paris to New York City. It is simply a way to make sense of space and a way to locate and find ourselves within that space. Your physical body will age, wrinkles will appear, your eyesight will weaken, you will move more slowly and you will experience many other physical changes as you get older. This is all true. Additionally, it is also true that you can choose to remain young at heart and have a youthful mindset in the midst of this. No one can take that away from you except yourself.

Wisdom

Wisdom. This cause for celebration is often, and unfortunately, overlooked. Your wisdom from your lived experiences, struggles and personal journey is incredibly valuable to younger generations. While it remains true that we all have to dive in and discover how to navigate life by ourselves, it sure would be a whole lot easier if we had wisdom from our elders to guide us and direct us toward making better choices and decisions. Celebrating your experience and wisdom gathered over the years is so important. Every day of your life has been a gift. Every day of your life has lead you to the exact place that you find yourself in now. Every breath, every tear, every decision, every place you have ever been, every person you have ever looked in the eyes, every lesson you have ever learned… it is all a part of who you are and no one else in the entire world has the same experiences or stories to tell.

Share your stories; they are full of wisdom. Honor who you are; there is no one else like you. Smile and keep opening yourself to new experiences. Your life is not over. Every single day we begin again and again. Every morning we open our eyes to new pages.