Becoming the person I'm meant to be

Hi, everyone.

As we get older, we often find ourselves morphing into a person who doesn't reflect on the outside who we feel we are inside. It has nothing to do with the process of aging,itself, but more with how we treat our bodies (and souls!, dare I say) AS we age. We eat too much, perhaps drink too much, become too busy,too harried, too caught up with keeping up with 'the Joneses', stop being active physically, etc., etc.
It's not a great feeling to look in the mirror and hardly recognize the person staring back at you. Worse yet, have you ever found yourself walking by a store shop window and turning your head to see who the big buffoon or cow is walking 'next' to you only realize with painful horror that it's you!! Scary, my friends, very very scary.
When I turned 50 y.o., I said to myself "MJ -- that's it!!! You deserve better than ending up living the remaining 20 or so years you have left as a 'frumpty,dumpty'. You were created a beautiful, vibrant, bright person and worked hard for so many years to be THAT person and were for several years the person you were meant to be and life was great! Somewhere along the 'merry way', you morphed into looking like someone else, while still inside being you -- get it back -- get it back"! And so I did, ladies and gentlemen. I started eating 100% healthier, I started exercising, I started simplifying my life wherever I could and concentrated on spending time with people and in places and situations that I found made me stronger, better, and happier. Of course, I still have responsibilities and stresses and am kind and giving to people -- even folks that are difficult and unfair, but I choose my path -- I'm not led into negativity out of guilt or by being pushed or feeling trapped. But most important, as I said earlier -- I'm leading a HEALTHY lifestyle. It was HELL at the beginning to get started and to STAY on course, but, after about 3 months, I started to feel just a wee bit more like 'me' again! Now, after almost 2 years of keeping at it -- I not only look and feel great, but I look and feel even better than when I was in my late 20's/early30s when I THOUGHT I looked my best! I'm wearing clothes again that enable me to reflect the style I want to embody and emit and, man, it feels great! In short, I'm on the fast track to becoming the person I'm meant to be. I'm so filled with it that I want to share this mission with the world. I'm really trying to get my children to grasp the importance of this. Man, if I had started when I was in my late30s/early40s, Lord knows what I could've accomplished or who I could've helped! It's never too late, though. I read a poem in the late 90s that started me on my journey to become the best 'me' and filled me with the desire to pass this legacy on. The poem is called 'Of History and Hope' by Miller Williams. I will post here the excerpt of this poem that I keep posted on my bulletin board:



".....But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children...

All this in the hands of children, eyes
already set on a land we can never visit --
it isn't there yet---
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget"

Won't you join me in 'remembering' who you are again and bringing yourself back?
I can help you, too. Let me hear from you!