Days Gone By…

My birthday is this week.

I’ll be 28.

Damn, that went fast.

Birthdays can be a time for celebration, but also a time for self-reflection and re-evaluation. We get so lost in the pattern of our everyday lives and the process of running our lives each day, but the time of year a birthday rolls around can provide a good opportunity to take a real look at everything in the big picture.

We have so many goals and aspirations in different arenas of our lives, and sometimes we accomplish those goals and other times we fall short, still striving to achieve them. And I’m certainly no different in that regard, on both sides of the spectrum…

Career-wise and in respect to relationships, I’ve had some good, and some bad. And that’s certainly also par for the course for most people out there. But, there are unquestionably things that I’ve not yet achieved and accomplished that I want to do. I’ve had some great relationships, but I do want to eventually meet the right woman and get married, and have a kid or two. If my mother has her way I’ll have more than one, including at least one daughter, but that’s another story entirely…

Vocationally, I’ve been with four major broadcast and cable networks, and a few production companies, and of course, I now write this column as well. But there are even bigger and better things that I want to accomplish — continuing to develop as a writer, and getting involved with more television projects, this time my own.

One of my favorite quotes actually comes from Will Smith. He said “Being realistic is the easiest traveled road to mediocrity.” So true, so true. After all, if you don’t dream big in the first place, you can’t achieve anything extraordinary. And, while I know some people surely won’t concur with that viewpoint and modus operandi, I certainly abide by it, and have for quite some time now. I know that I’ve got some aspirations that are simply nice, but others are certainly more big dreams — which I have no intention of giving up.

Something else, however, that I’ve noticed — which seems to hold a more prominent place in my head around my birthday over the last few years — is that, well, time moves really fast.

Really, really fast…

And I think as we get older, it moves even faster.

That means that we’ve only got so much time. Only so much time to be with our families. Only so much time to be with our friends. And, only so much time to accomplish our goals.

Now, I’ll only be turning 28 years old this week, and that’s certainly not terribly old. I know there are absolutely a lot of people who still consider a 28-year-old a kid. But, as I slowly now make that approach to the big three – O, I start to think more and more about how time is, in fact, starting to go faster, and I may not be “old,” but I’m not a kid anymore either.

So as it turns out, birthdays truly aren’t just a celebration of another year gone by. Rather, they’re also reminders… Reminders of what we’ve accomplished. And also reminders of what we’ve not yet achieved and want to… and that the clock is ticking…

So get into gear and get on it…

“There is still no cure for the common birthday.” – John Glenn

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