PeaceBang Is 42!

PeaceBang’s Forty-Two Random Smidgens of Wisdom Upon Turning Forty-Two

1. Eye cream. Every day.
2. Stretching and exercise. Every day, one or the other (not that I practice what I preach here, darlings, I’m just dolin’ out the advice, not necessarily taking it).
3. Love your body. You may berate it for not looking right in any of the outfits you’re trying on that day, but you may not curse it naked, for it is your home. It is your soft little spaceship. Speak kindly to it and of it.
4. That said, there’s no reason to go about naked in broad daylight or bedroom light unless you’re inordinately confident. That’s why God made candles.
5. Change your hairstyle now and then.

6. Get out of ruts: just because you’re absolutely certain you look TERRIBLE in brown doesn’t mean a thing. It’s just a belief you have; you could be really wrong, and you probably are. Go try on something brown. It wouldn’t kill you.
7. Get really serious about retirement funds. Advocate for yourself financially, ’cause honey, ain’t no one gonna do that for you.
8. Some people are emotional nightmares, vampires, and some people are just difficult but worth the trouble. Learn the tell the difference, choose wisely, and eject the vampires from your life. Remember that difficult people are often the most creative, challenging and interesting. Be cautious in relationship with them, but hold on for the ride.
9. When people who don’t really know you think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread and fawn over you or conversely, think you’re devil spawn, there’s projection going on. For this reason, don’t take people’s reactions to you, good or bad, too personally.
10. Attend to your own addictions. Like, quit smoking, for God’s sake. What has a cigarette ever done for you but try to kill you?

11. Get a yearly mammogram; if you’re a guy, get checked for prostate cancer. Don’t avoid the doctor, and start keeping well-organized health records if you don’t already. Note chronic conditions on a calendar in the bathroom so you can accurately report to your doctor, rather than saying things like, “I feel like I get heartburn a lot” or “I get migraines.” When, precisely? How many days this month? Under what circumstances? This information will be very helpful in getting the best care.
12. Take care of your teeth. Plaque in the mouth can wind up in the arteries and cause heart problems. Floss every day.
13. Find a deep spiritual path that makes serious demands of you and be obedient to it.
14. It’s up to you to get enough sleep. Don’t play the dangerous game of bragging how you never get enough rest. This is an American disease of workaholism, competitiveness and punishing schedules. See that you get sufficient sleep; your body needs it.
15. Have someone or something in your life to which you can rise every morning and say, “I love you” and mean it with all your heart. Allow yourself to receive unconditional love in return (hint: from my life experience, I’ve learned that only God loves us perfectly — your mileage may vary). Practice this just like you’d practice mastering an instrument. Your life depends on it

16. Make arrangements for your own memorial service, just in case. Hope you don’t need it for another 42 years at least, and consider that you’re statistically likely to be about exactly halfway through this pilgrimage: congratulations for making it this far
17. “Love is the drug.” Surround yourself with people with whom you can share a reciprocal relationship of respect and nurture, and with whom you can share your authentic self without fear that your frailties will ever be used in an abusive way against you.
18. Know thyself, and make no apologies for the good gift God has made in you. You will progress in your own soul’s time, not anyone else’s.
19. Say “thank you” about three times more often than you feel is necessary.
20. Mentor the next generation. If you’ve earned any wisdom or expertise at all by now, it’s your responsibility to share it with them, and to help them get started.

21. Saying “yes” when you deeply want to say “no” will not make anyone love you more, it will just make you resentful and exhausted. Don’t let your ego needs override your soul needs.
22. Buy flowers for yourself.
23. Relationships are not about someone making you happy, but about two people having an opportunity to practice the spiritual discipline of love. It is not anyone’s job or responsibility to make you happy, not even your spouse’s.
24. Support your local community theatre. The people on that stage are bringing that story to life for the love of it, as volunteers. There is ritual and magic and transformation in the theatre; it can be very much like a worship service. If you attend the theatre, you will understand liturgy all the better.
25. If you are a caregiver, budget enough money every year for your own self-care, and that includes vacations, massages, nights out with friends, manicures, acupuncture, Reiki, whatever it takes. Keep receipts and share them with the people responsible for determining your compensation for the year. Keeping a caregiver in decent working order can get very expensive.

26. Plan ahead. Have a vision, and when it no longer excites you or demands your deepest, most valuable inner resources, revise it.
27. Read, read, read. Never stop learning, and pursue knowledge outside your comfort zone — it uses new parts of your brain, and that’s a good thing.
28. Avoid jealous people. Seek out those who take pleasure in other’s accomplishments.
29. Love your congregation or leave it. To continue to serve an institution that you viscerally dislike on a consistent basis (not just during occasional times of conflict or special difficulty) is fraudulent. Have some integrity and get another job.
30. Don’t expect people outside the ministry to understand it, or to respect that it is the center of your life or what that means.

31. Start a good, intuitive system of organizing your work life early on in your career, and keep up with it.
32. If God is real in your life, don’t ever apologize for that to those for whom God is not real in order to seem more sophisticated or “cool.”
Likewise, don’t be a proseletyzing pain in the buns, either, because no one wants to hear it. “May your life speak more loudly than your lips.”
33. The devil is in the details. The angels are there, too.
34. Know your gifts, and know your limitations and weak spots. Offer your gifts freely and work hard at becoming better at what you do well, and shower appreciation and support on those whose skills and gifts make up for your deficiencies, especially in the workplace.
35. Give people your full attention. Careful, attentive listening is an act of love.
36. Chronic lateness is a form of passive-aggression. It says, “My time is more important than yours.” Apologize for being late. Honor other people’s time.
37. Everyone is artistic in some way. Find a way to incorporate art into your life.
38. Make your home a sanctuary. If you have kids, good luck with this one.
39. Speak up when you need to (and you do need to), but try not to be obnoxious about it.
40. What you eat really does have a huge influence on your health and well-being, but keep it simple. Trying to follow several different complicated, faddish, esoteric food plans over the years is an almost certain recipe for irritating others and wasting your own time and money.
41. If you can’t comfortably eat dinner alone in a restaurant by the time you’re forty, what are you so afraid of?
42. You’re not required to like birthday cake. You may, at 42, find that you are ready to admit that you hate birthday cake, and would, in, fact prefer 12 perfectly friend buffalo chicken wings as the finale to your birthday dinner. If you’re not a little bit eccentric by the time you’re 42, you’re probably not very interesting. Go for it. Be yourself.