A reflection on aging and living life fully.

This past summer I biologically turned age 78. Do I feel like I am 78 years old? No. I think of my self as 78 years young and gaining wisdom with each day. I have concluded that age is irrelevant to one's life.

Life is a gift. Life is for living and it is—from my perspective—a time to be happy and to be joyful. This does not mean that life has always been a bed of roses and easy living. No—not at all. I have learned that it all comes down to attitudes. It is a journey of discarding old, unproductive beliefs and attitudes.

Life has stages of living and learning. The stages that come to mind are childhood, teen-age years, young adult, career, marriage (for some), parenthood, empty-nest, retirement. Of course, there are those who never married—or are divorced and have no children. I can only assess these stages from my own experience and observations.

I have three children and I raised them almost alone. Their father was a career military man and he was away from home two-thirds of their growing up years. I now find this a blessing because I was able to discover my own strengths and weaknesses and bring up my children the way I wanted to.

What I have discovered and realized is that these stages of life are necessary in order to gain experience and to learn from these experiences in order to gain wisdom. Too many nursing homes are filled with people who have held on to the past hurts, resentments and unforgiveness. What does forgiveness mean? It means giving it up.

When I became aware of my own attitudes, I began to examine them. I became aware of my beliefs and from where I accumulated them. What I saw in myself, I recognized as also being in others that I did not want to be like. Oh yes, I became a workshop, seminar junkie and I am now pleased with the results. They served me well becauseI began discarding attitudes that no longer served me.

Far too many people live in the past. They hold on to pet peeves, jealousies, resentments, anger towards perhaps parents or an ex-spouse. This is similar to dragging dead mules around and it becomes obvious when one listens to another's words. I have learned from my mistakes and I have released myself from those old dead mules of the past. I find I am healthier than I have ever been and I find life to be joyful and filled with wonderful unexpected happenings and people.

What do I do with my time? For one thing, I rarely watch television. Why do I want to fill my mind with sorrow, inane silliness and programming that I spent years to eradicate from my life? I would much rather read and I read fiction and non-fiction books that will feed my mind with knowledge. I love to write.

I love to research and it was from my research that my award-winning book, Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls became a reality. I also chose to self-publish my book because after examining the reality of finding an agent and waiting for the agent to sell my manuscript, the likelihood of it happening appeared to be a long wait. I wanted my book released as soon as possible.

Have I regretted my decision? Not at all. From my perspective, this has given me freedom and the opportunity to learn about marketing and promoting my book. I own my book. In fact, I own all my books, which include A Christmas Awakening and the soon-to-be released sequel Mary Magdalene, Her Legacy.

In addition to marketing my books, I conduct workshops on self-publishing. It is never too late to change one's mind. It is never too late to have a dream come true . Life is not passing me by and I know that age is only a state of the mind. Life is a journey of discovery. When we change our mind, we change our world.