Getting Old Is Awesome!

31 July 1944 – World War II was ending. Another baby arrived under the sign of Leo in the year of the Monkey – a boy child with white skin, brown eyes, brown hair - born into a Protestant, middleclass, mid-western American family - the beginning of the first decade.

Hey, I don’t want to be 70! It is far too old. I am not that old. I feel much younger. I am engaged, working, traveling. I am healthy, happy, connected. How can I be so old? Or is 70 old? Or is it 80 that is old? Or 90? Or 100? Or 110? Or 50? Or 60? What is old? And what difference does it make any how? To me? To anyone?

In my 70th year I conducted an organizational development consultancy with a UN Habitat global program on access to land for the poor involving two trips to Nairobi, Kenya; taught two New York University graduate courses, i.e., Innovative Leadership and International Capstone; made a keynote presentation at a symposium on creative peacemaking held at Oklahoma City University; taught a University of Aruba seminar for educational administrators on collaborative leadership; facilitated a workshop and made a presentation in the UN Public Service Global Forum on Sustainable Development held in Seoul, Korea; published 87 blog posts on "A Compassionate Civilization"; and participated in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Is that a lot? Is that a little? Is that enough?

But why don’t I want to be 70? I made it! I lived seven decades on planet Earth! I did it! I am alive and kicking! I still have work to do, being to be, knowing to know. I am not finished. I am still here. They can’t shut me up, or put me on the shelf, yet. I can sound off. I can tell the truth. I can be my being. I can be all that I can be, here and now. I can love. I can say I love you. Hip, hip hooray!

I am proud of being 70. Wow, 70 years of living on planet Earth! What a glory, what a gift, what an adventure, what a journey, what a learning. I am impressed with myself – to be turning 70. Both my grandfathers died in their mid-fifties. My two lovely grandchildren have a 70 year old grandfather. Okay! They call me Grandpa Rob. I love it when they say that and look at me and ask me to play with them and ask me to put them to bed. I love being a grandpa. What a treat. I feel like I get to be a kid again, to grow up again with my grandkids; and I get to be a parent again (sort of).

Someday this body will cease to function altogether. I am learning to accept that. For now it is quite miraculous that I am alive, conscious, thinking, moving, feeling, relating. For this I am grateful. I am happy. I am amazed. I am fascinated. In fact, I have only always experienced being alive. Yet I know that the universe was going on for 13.7 billion years before I was born and will go on for another several billion years after I die. What a mystery to wake up for this flickering moment and be conscious of all of it!

I am proud of my white hair and my wrinkles. Hey, this is what a human being looks like who has lived 70 years, okay? Pretty cool, huh? I watch what I eat. I need to exercise regularly. Get enough rest. Keep moving. Use it or lose it.  Stay active. Stay involved. Stay connected.  Keep learning, every day. Keep growing. Keep asking why. Keep being surprised. Keep smiling, laughing, especially at yourself, especially at myself. Keep being grateful. Keep risking and loving and feeling.

I love yellow, orange and red. I love the sound of French horns. I love the shape of spiral galaxies. I love the photo of planet Earth from space. I love all kinds of flowers, and buildings, and peoples’ faces – all colors and shapes, and people’s bodies – all sizes and shapes, and the sun, oh yes, the sun, and clouds, and on and on and on.

I love to eat and sleep and wake up and have my Bengal Spice tea and yogurt and granola and say good morning to my wife and check my email and take a hot shower and sit at my desk and think and write. I love to dream about an emerging civilization of compassion. I love the happiness that is not a goal to be sought but a path to be walked moment by moment.

In my 70th year I am profoundly grateful for my life, my wife, my two sons, my two grandchildren, my daughter-in-law, my brother, my two sisters-in-law, my brother-in-law, my nephews and nieces, my cousins, my aunt and all my wonderful, loving family. I am forever grateful for my colleagues at UNDP, UNDESA and UN Habitat, my colleagues and grad students at NYU, my ICA colleagues, my social artistry colleagues and my friends. I am grateful for health, home, happiness and my spiritual practice. I am grateful for loved ones who have passed on including my late wife, my parents, grandparents and all my ancestors. I am grateful for my teachers, exemplars and archetypes who have taught me, inspired me, encouraged me and challenged me. I am grateful for planet Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way and this vast mysterious universe.

I rededicate my life to relieve the suffering of all beings everywhere through concrete words and deeds. I will promote innovative leadership for sustainable human development especially through teaching, training, facilitating, writing and speaking. I vow to help catalyze the emergence of a civilization of compassion embodying environmental protection, gender equality, participatory governance, socio-economic justice and cultural tolerance and understanding. I commit the rest of my life to creating a world that works for everyone in which each person can realize her/his full potential.

So, to paraphrase Margaret Mead, I say, “Thank God I’m me and I’m 70!” And as my grandchildren love to say (from The Lego Movie), “Everything is awesome!”
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(Photo above taken at a UN global conference in Seoul, June 2014)