So I stepped into my
40th year in this world today. Of course, the fortieth birthday
as such is only in 2014, but the connotation of the big four oh itself is
supposed to be a milestone of sorts, a hill that you’re going over, an age
where you’re considered more old than young.
I’ve
been asked by people what I want to do to mark the occasion – perhaps do
something crazy like sky-diving or whitewater rafting, or achieve something
like travelling the globe or climbing to the top of the career ladder, or even
just create a bucket list of things I want to do before I die. Truth be told, I
have no desire to do anything “special”, simply because I don’t feel that
turning 40 or any other age should define what you have done, should have done,
or should do with your life.
Are
we prisoners of time? Or do we have any control over the way our bodies change
with the passage of time (botox and plastic surgeons notwithstanding)? While
we’d like to believe that we do have some control, the irony is that as we grow
older, the greater the lengths we go to, to hold on to any physical vestige of
youth. We try to do things to reassure ourselves that we’re not really growing
older, and that age is just number we should try to stay ahead of.
I’d
like to be a prisoner of time, I’d love to hold on to a part of the past, the
part where our souls are still whole and we’re children who haven’t lost their
innocence. In an ideal world, it should be the erosion of my soul and not the
erosion of my youth that should cause me concern. It should be the scars on my
conscience and the black in my mind more than the wrinkles on my face and the
white in my hair that should give me sleepless nights.
I
know that who I am today is the sum total of all my past experiences, some have
changed me for the better, while others have made me bitter. So on my 40th or
any other birthday, I only wish for one thing to define me – that I am more of
“better” than “bitter”, in spite of anything that may have happened in the
interim.
