A good friend of mine has a motto he swears by: “Celebrate early, celebrate often”. He believes in taking every little win and making the most of it. Mind you, he also enjoys a drink and doesn’t need much of an excuse to open a bottle of red!
Celebration doesn’t come as naturally to me because my life seems to fill up with other priorities – work problems, money worries, hobbies. I tend to relegate celebrations to birthdays, anniversaries and the occasional WTF moments.
Recently though, as brought to life in my last post, Aegir and I retraced a mountain trail we climbed in Switzerland 22 years ago. With it came the inevitable reflection: “How far have we come?”
I thought back to that 27-year-old version of me, fooling around knee deep in snow with boundless energy and a zest for life. No kids. No worries. Mucking about. All the time in the world. Back then, I was brimming with fun, ambition and optimism.
This time, at the same summit, only with a snow-capped landscape giving way to a green meadow, Aegir and I basked lazily in the sun for hours. In that quiet, unhurried moment, we basically did nothing. It was wonderful.
Exhaustion – physical from the climb and mental from years of relentless 60-hour work weeks – settled in. Relaxing like that is dangerous because it exposes just how deeply tired you are. Yet, amidst the fatigue, I felt a profound sense of satisfaction.
Because that old spark – the optimism, the determination, the zest for life – is still there, it just expresses itself differently these days. I felt it clearly and it was a good moment. I didn’t feel at all disappointed or weary. I felt immensely proud.
That’s the paradox I guess.
Week to week, I often feel overworked and overwhelmed, like I’m fighting a losing battle. But I’m not. I just need to stop and savour the wins more often.
As I basked on that mountain top, I realised that whilst not all of my achievements have unfolded as well as I once hoped they would, they’re still worth celebrating.
Reflection is natural. We pause to measure how far we’ve come and consider whether we’ve arrived at where we wanted to be. But mid-life also offers a gift: a time to reflect on where we want to go next, and how we might get there.