» Old age is no place for sissies. « Bette Davis, actress (1908-1989)
I have never felt that I was getting older or that I was coming upon middle age, until recently. The other afternoon I was driving with my daughter, who is now six, when we learned the news that Michael Jackson had died. My daughter asked, “Mom, who is that?” Clearly, I had not brought her up to speed on the King of Pop. So I explained who he was and we bobbed our heads for the entire one hour ride home to songs like “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” “Thriller,” “Billie Jean,” “Bad” and “Beat It.” And while she innocently rocked out in the back seat, I got a little nostalgic about the last three-plus decades of my life, the music that was the soundtrack for me—and for the shy kid I was who wouldn’t dance when Thriller topped the charts. As all kids should be, I was naive and knew nothing of the world, business, the big picture or bull and bear markets, nor did I care.
To further my fall into the abyss of age, the next day I came upon an article by columnist Lisa Kogan, titled “Lisa Kogan’s 40 Something Manifesto.” While I am not quite 40 yet, (really, I’m not) I could certainly relate to the whirlwind of life that she described. She wrote, “Many of us have demanding kids or aging parents or a little of each. We juggle jobs, mortgages, student loans and cancer treatments with low-fat diets, low-impact aerobics, low-grade depressions, a strong sense of irony, a dark sense of humor and a full-bodied cabernet. We are tired. We are very tired. …” I related so much that I posted the article on my Facebook page, e-mailed it to friends and made family suffer through readings of it. (I will also post it to Promo Marketing’s Facebook page as well. So log on, friend us and read it!) But at the end of it all, Kogan came to the same conclusions as I did—she is a stronger, smarter and more confident Lisa Kogan than she was at 20.
At 38, I can honestly say I am OK with the passing of time, at least for now. There is something to be said for learning who you are and gaining confidence in your actions. When you know who you are within the world and like that person, everything from the dining room to the boardroom becomes easier. What’s even better is the shy kid is gone, and today, gimme a little Michael Jackson singing “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground),” and heck yeah, I’ll dance.
