Abundance is the process of letting go; that which is empty can receive. – Bryant H. McGill
I certainly wouldn’t want to give up the intangibles that mean the most to me. Focusing on each memorable life lesson has helped me grow and learn. Sure, I’d certainly like to forget some. Maybe it is just better to let them go to make room for more memories.
Treasuring memories at this stage in life is important. As the body ages, normal memory loss does happen. Maybe it is because of saturation of information we’ve put into it all these years. With technology and information at our finger tips, it’s easy to have brain overload. We live by multitasking much of the time. Is that necessarily a good thing? http://techland.time.com/2011/04/18/study-multitasking-information-overload-bad-for-you/
We can choose not to multi-task, but it is tough if you have lots of hats to wear and things to keep track of. I’ve always been pretty proud of being able to multi-task. One of my favorites is reading while on the treadmill. I’ve been doing it for so many years, it is normal to me. Running outside without the book is way more enjoyable and easier to focus on the muscles and the environment. When I’m at my computer I typically have Outlook, Quicken, Facebook, Pinterest, Google and Blogger as I multitask my way through the tasks at hand. Lately, I’m starting to wonder if that is why I feel so scattered some days. Hopefully it is just overload and not the start of age related memory loss. Choosing to focus on one thing at a time definitely helps me.
What about age related memory loss? In 2012 the average number of people with dementia was 1 in 14. http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=412
Think about that for a moment…you have 14 close friends and
one of them has dementia. What if you
are that one person? My mom was one of
them in her age group. I remember
looking at her friends when they were 50 and seemingly carefree, you know, just like
me. Seventeen years and one stroke later, she was
part of the statistics. She
instantaneously lost memories she treasured.
Having watched the disease unfold her and her life, I feel I’m better prepared
than she was. I can definitely do things
to prevent a stroke. I can choose
abundance of healthy eating and exercise to have abundant health instead
abundant disease. You can too, it’s your
choice. Let go of the bad habits and
make room for healthier choices.
At this stage in my life, the tangible stuff is where there’s
definitely room for improvement. By the
age of 50 how much stuff do people accumulate?
I dread to think of the weight in paper and stuff that surround me. There is a point where all that stuff is
simply too much for my brain to keep track of.
That’s the tipping point where abundance becomes clutter. It is then time to let go so that you can
once again appreciate balance in life.
Look around where you’re at right now. At our age, we’ve worked hard to get the
stuff we have. Do you have just the
right amount of stuff? At what point is
enough is enough? Do you feel abundance and blessed or do you
feel overwhelmed and stressed? When you
have way more than what you need it is hard to feel as though it is abundance. It is more out of balance.
For me, I start to resent the excessive accumulation of
stuff when I have more than I need.
Every year, especially at tax preparation time I resent the paper
accumulation the most. Reliving the year
through the receipts and transactions reminds me of the blessings in life, and
the memories created, but then there’s the paper to deal with. Where oh where is that book on what to keep
and what to throw? Oh dear…that brings
me back to where I started today. The
pile of papers….time to get back to work!
Thanks for stopping by ~ enjoy the balanced abundance in your
life. Create memories, treasure relationships,
and let go of the excess to make room for more of the important things in
life! Next week’s A in A Future being 50
we’re going to look at Aphorism.
PS – Photography moments of the week. There's an abundance of snow I could take pictures of, but it
was bitterly cold so taking outside pictures didn't sound fun to me. I chose to focus on my paperwork instead. I measured the stack and then took all the “important”
papers out of the envelopes to see how much waste there was. It is amazing how much paper really isn’t needed. I don’t want to clear it
out to make room for more papers though.
I’m still playing with shooting RAW in manual mode. It is making the mundane pictures kind of
fun in a way. I didn’t spend much time with the
camera this week due to FOCUS elsewhere. For some reason, every photo challenge has to take a self portrait. I tried the portrait setting one day to see if that helps. I just think my arms aren't long enough to hold the camera. Here are just a few nonsense pictures I took while learning more about the manual settings.
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| Yucky pile of paper...good focus in front and blurred background. Boring subject! |
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| Wow - Nearly 6 inches of paper to deal with! |
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| That's better...nearly 3 inches of envelopes and papers I didn't need and could throw away. |
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| Some melting moments...then it snowed again. |
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| Tons of attempts at selfies...I was trying to hold the camera instead of using a tripod, I just don't get it how to make it work. |
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| There's always the cat, the lighting was set wrong, this is back when I didn't have much experience on the manual setting. |
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| There's always something to smile about...no grey showing through yet! |
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