Grace…
Greeting dear friends & fellow navigators, & welcome to my world today. In my last article I
reflected on New Directions. Over the 10 days I have been reflecting on a letter to my 70
year-old-self. Since February 22nd 2025, I turned a different age. I do not feel any older than I did yesterday & in some ways, I am quite humbled by the life I have been privileged to live with its many lessons & experiences, mountaintops & valleys & the trek in between the two.
When you are 12, 20-something seems like a grown-up age & you long to get there. But when you are 20-something, 70 seems so old & so far away you dread the thought. Maybe it is a thing to fear or just the thought scares us. You be the judge. But here is a letter to myself at 70.
Dear Self on Your 70th Birthday,
Today, you changed ages. You have entered a rather strange & beautiful group of people
between middle age & elderly. You are no longer super young, but you are not old either.
You have come a very long way from thirty. Congratulations!
I am certain you have grown enough to understand life is precious & fragile. It must be lived boldly yet handled with care. You understand it is not so much about you as it is about you living for something higher than you. I am certain you have accomplished way more than you imagined but your underlying aim behind all this effort was to make a difference in the world. I think you have done this quite well.
Everyone seems to have a common desire to make a mark on the world. At least at this age, some expect to have had this goal reached. Indeed, some people have done so long
before now while others are just getting started. But you have thought about your place in making a difference long before now. You have reached a pinnacle & has seen you
everywhere you wanted to be, doing the things you want to be doing at this age.
You are settled, strong, & gracious. You have found your happiness, the one thing (or maybe more) to make you tick, & gets you excited even after decades of doing it. Your writing, your research, your speaking, your leading pushes you out of bed every morning after so much time. I am certain you have smiled at your successes, celebrated your achievements, cried at your pain, re-evaluated your progress after failure, & even worried about one thing or another at some point. But you realize every experience was a blessing in disguise even if the blessing came very long after the fact.
So you walk with your heart humbled & your head up. You went through some very difficult times & crushing moments, yet you managed to stay strong & use the negativities to push forward on your path to where you are now. In a nutshell, you have done well. I have to pinch myself when I look at all of your accomplishments & especially the people who are impacted by your work.
You have developed a tough mind & a tender heart through it all. You used to think of grace as some heavenly idea for a select few, but now you know what it is & to the joy you feel in your soul each night, & you desire to live no different.
You have always wanted to move people with your words & research, & boy, you have done
a good job. People use to not like it when you spoke your mind, told the truth, stood by your beliefs, & had no worries about the opinions of other people. But most are over this now.
You have learned the longer you stick with something, the more respect you gain. Then there is the part of you who has grown to be accepting, the favourable & disappointing situations, & the news to bring joy & sadness. For a long time, you have chosen the path of gratitude.
You have stopped beating yourself up & stopped feeling like you are not good enough, or
smart enough, or anything else enough. You have learned to show yourself grace.
This grace does not come directly from you exactly. You know, you used to be quite the
perfectionist. But you have allowed yourself to be open to a grace unconditional, unlimited, & wholehearted. You have pulled back the curtain & let in the light leading you into paths you never thought you would enter & let go of what you could not control, & turned your focus to accomplishing something worthwhile not for yourself, but for the people around you.
You know what it feels like to be friendless, to be lost, to feel stressed & emotionally drained, & to feel like things are not moving fast enough. You know what it feels like when everyone around you is shouting at each other & nobody is listening. You know what it feels like to let yourself go even in the midst of the unknown. You know what it means to love & to be loved. You have been a hero to someone & someone has been yours.
You know if you were to take a few days to thoroughly look back over your life, you would
realize the grace you are living, working, & playing now is because you have grown into a
person who can do many things because you are gracious & thankful for the experience.
Yet you are still the same person. You drink coffee for the good feeling. You eat chocolate for the good feeling too. You go to grocery stores just to buy snacks & look around for nothing in particular. You dress up because it is important even on odd days & you are not afraid to just be who you are. You listen because you can feel the heart of people this way. You love your old soul because it is where you get to understand people & show compassion & grace.
You know what it was like to be 20-something & uncertain. You know what it was like to
create your own path forward with not an inkling of an idea what you were doing. You
remember it took you some time to get to where you are & you are not afraid to share all the personal horror stories because you are happy to help even if you are the example.
I am happy to see you where you are right now. So bold yet humble, so free yet always
striving to be better, so amazed by what you know & even more surprised by what you do
not. Yes, you have grown a great deal since the last time we talked. You are not exactly
striving anymore, just cruising with your goals in life. You are not getting old; you are just
getting older. You have grown up & you continue to grow & improve & make a mark on the world for good. And I am crazy proud of you for this…
Just few observations again dear friends, & provide an opinion in my world. Thank you for
stopping by, I appreciate your being here. If my journey encourages you also, all is well with my soul. Looking forward to next week; this is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson with best wishes.
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