“Do not regret growing older, it is a privilege denied to many” -Mark Twain

The other day my fiancee was asking about an Edmonton Oilers player named Mattias Ekholm. I mentioned he was one of our oldest players, and when she asked his age I replied that he was 35….the same age we are.

Well she didn’t take that comment all that gracefully, instead scrunching her nose and rolling her eyes.

I started laughing because it’s comical how a player considered “old” in the NHL is the same age as I am. In fact, there’s only one player on my favourite NHL team that is older than me. Finally, a reason for me to not dislike Adam Henrique.

I believe in practicing gratitude, so it’s only fitting that the beginning quote in this article came across my social media feed afterwards.

My mother passed at 40. My sister at 19. Recently in my country, a bunch of children lost their lives in a senseless act of violence.

Every breath on this Earth is a gift. It’s not often we realize the gravity of our days we get to live, and how lucky we are for every spin around the sun.

Personally I’m excited for aging. Not just because I believe I can pull off the salt and pepper look ala George Clooney, but because I get to experience another walk of life.

If we’re the luckiest souls on this planet, we get to have a care-free childhood and grow into adulthood. Then we get to spend our 20’s figuring out what we want to do in our lives. Hopefully our 30’s are spent comfortable maintaining the life we worked for in our 20’s and each decade following brings on a new look at life.

Man, ain’t it crazy how when we were kids we thought 30 was old? Like when Deana Carter sings that line in her classic “Strawberry Wine” and I hear it now I once again find myself giggling.

I’d like to think 80 years is a good long life, so I know I am approaching the half way point if i’m lucky, so why should I be upset about getting to that age? You aren’t getting fucked over by aging, and damn if I’m gonna fuck up my face with plastic surgery and hair plugs.

Bill Burr said it best “would you rather be 60 and look 60 or be 60 and look like a 25-year-old lizard. Don’t come at me lizard people!!!

My algorithm on my social media is becoming more positive and inspiring. I’ve cleaned up the things I seek out, because I want to attract positivity. Hell, even on a day when my country lost the gold medal game to the US, I asked my app to not show me more content like that…You wanna know why? It is because I didn’t want to be brought down.

I want to be brought up. I want to be inspired.

While scrolling today, I came across Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, listing reasons why you shouldn’t care about anything that is worrying you. One of the things he said is “if you’re lucky, you will do one thing in this life that will be remembered 100 years from now.”

Sure life can be hard sometimes, but there are people in ICU’s, children with cancer, and poor people in war-torn countries fighting for another day. Meanwhile some of us just going through the motions whining about slow wifi connections.

Have you ever listened to somebody who had a near death experience and asked them what they regretted the most in that moment? I guarantee you they regret not living their life to the fullest while they could.

I don’t intend to live my life waiting for the “you don’t know what you got til it’s gone” to kick in. I know what I got and I am super grateful for every single thing.

I’m also excited to grow old because the older I get, the less I care about the things that used to drive me crazy in my younger years. I don’t care what anybody thinks of me anymore. I am content and happy with who I am.

I’ve made peace with the mistakes I’ve made in the past, and I’m not interested in looking back anymore. I only want to remember the great things that happened and forget the bad.

So if you’re looking at the lines in your face, or picking out the grey hairs on your head, think about how lucky you are that you’ve lived long enough to see these so called blemishes.

Nobody is gonna save you, and nobody is getting out of this world alive. Make the most of the time you have on this globe, and be grateful for even the days you didn’t enjoy.