Age: Only a number, right? Right!!!

Me and Jnr (left)…cherubic?

Today is July 25th, which means, in exactly 6 months, I turn 40.

Forty? How did that happen? It’s true what ‘they’ say, life goes quicker as we get older, and I certainly believe it. It seems like only yesterday that I went backpacking on my first trip beyond Europe…it was 1994.

But what will it mean to be 40? Nothing, I hope, other than the happy belief that I still have a long time to go in this life and so many more things to achieve and aspire to.

Any differences? No.

I feel the same…besides, ‘they’ also say you’re only as old as the woman you feel…Leslie is 32. I do hobble about for a couple of days after I’ve played a footy match. But hey, I still play, albeit not for a while here on the island.

I look the same…except the ‘salt & pepper’ hair, and a couple of thin wrinkles above my eyes.

Me and Jnr (left) don’t look a bit different from the first picture.

I act the same, more or less, meaning I still have a lot of fun and look forward to everyday as much if not more than the last.

All in all, turning forty holds no fear for me.

So how will the next 6 months go compared to the last year or so? Well, in that time, I’ve written a novel, (now editing) I ran a half marathon, I started this blog, I completed a CELTA ESL course, I traveled to 10 different countries, I won a league winner’s medal with my footy team in Korea, and I now live in Thailand. Yes, a fulfilling stretch of time. In the next 6 months, I hope to have finished editing my novel, continue writing my memoirs, traveled to a few new countries, spend more time in my hammock, and 6 months to the day, catch up with family and friends for a 40th birthday bash in Bali.

Yep, I’m a lucky guy just living the dream. Yet I never take my life for granted. Ever since my dad sadly died, way too young at just 52, I’ve tried to live everyday, within reason, like it might be my last, especially as there have been a few near misses along the way to remind me of my mortality, most notably my glacier fall, and more recently, a terrifying road accident in Bangkok.

So if myself, or anyone of you for that matter, can always live that way, as if everyday could be our last, then the future, both mine and yours, will be bright.

I leave you with my favourite poem, written by Roman philosopher poet Horace. I discovered it a decade ago whilst at University, and it has been my mantra ever since. It’s over 2000 years old, but is just as poignant today.

Carpe Diem, my friends, and remember, age is just a number!! Honest.

“Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.”

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC)Odes, Book 3, Verse 29.