How about starting the week with a quote from Dickens.
Look back at how old you were on January 1st, 2000. I was exactly 33.5 years old when the calendar turned from the 1900’s into the 2000’s. Which means when I turn 67, I will have lived the exact amount of time in each century. That’s a fun little math game to play, but the equation that counts is the fact that we are all here at the same time. Give or take a couple years.
In that time, I have drunk a couple beers too many and played with myself more than the Catholic Church allows. I’m hoping I have some more gooder stuff than badder stuff. Most of the years I have suffered as a sports fan and most of those years I’ve voted for the same political party. Neither have the same vigor it once held.
And yet, through all that living... the wins, the losses, the bad habits, the loyalty, the decades-long sports misery...
...the only real through-line is this: Keep showing up.
Take the hits, laugh at yourself, and steady the people who lean on me. Even now, staring down what’s officially the snowiest start to winter since 1978, I keep putting one boot in front of the other.
Still, Dickens had it right. You are never useless if you lighten someone’s burden.
That is the kind of math that actually matters.
