I’m a ‘half-50’ and life begins with a game in bed

When you’re 25 you feel young still. You feel that your entire life is still ahead of you. That you got all the time ahead of you to perform all the voodoo in your head to make something of your life. The material possessions, the friendships (quality ones at that), the family, the soulful life partner, the travels, the advanced education, the self-love but more so, the love of others and the appreciation of every single moment.

For me, and I’m sure for the many other half-50s out there, there is no other option but to begin embracing the beauty of life now and moulding all those material wet dreams into touchable bricks and mortar – reality.

For me, I feel I’m left no option but to get on with it. And not as a bullshit New Year’s resolution or birthday resolution (I’m 25 as of yesterday). But rather as a half-50 resolution. I mean, think of it, when you put 50 in it, you do really feel that you have burnt quite a chunk of the numbers you’re allocated in this life. In that kind if space, you better start living. Like really living. Representing your one man/woman team as both the player and the obsessive fan. For me at least, that’s the highway that’s going to be taken.

The ‘dream team’ better become the ‘real team’ or else I may be 50 (-something) like David Bullard find myself busy bragging to 12 year and 24 year olds on the blogosphere about my life as a salaried top journalist and the fast cars, the SUVs, the Cuban cigars, the globetrotting and the Playboy mansion parties. Is it ideal to have that ‘lustful’ activities list at 50-something? Yes, when paired against the average.

But a big NO. When pitted against the best. The unsalaried bold of the world like all those entrepreneurial human brands I won’t mention here. So my goal, in short, is, as of this half-50, work on being unsalaried at 50-something. And better still, be with the Bullard ‘lustful’ list but on the entrepreneurial human brand names. But better still, to be touching lives.

“I have all the money I’ll ever need and a bunch of homes scattered around the world along with a ton of public acclaim. But I’m desperately unhappy,” that’s what a top executive lamented to management coach Robin Sharma once. Do I say that when my head turns grey? The game plan is to live so that I don’t have to – at least I've got to trust in my head, heart and guts.

For nearly everyone with a heart and some grey matter on their shoulders, the goal is to be at one’s personal best consistently as that can bring loads of comfort and fulfillment – not forgetting the realisation of all those dreams. But that goal ranks as the single most simplest thing, which, ironically, is the most difficult to achieve, consistently.

This is when the drown-some life long habits kick in. They plot against our goals. Some inhibiting boundaries that keep us average – reducing us to admiration of the Bullard’s of this world, and envying the entrepreneurial human brands that grace the black card list of American Express. Or is it the black card of life itself?

I’m probably bullshitting because I’m writing this on the morning of my birthday and life feels like it has just begun and everything so great (Stevie Wonders’ Happy Birthday plays in the background). But in reality, for me life begun the day my second daughter, Tinyiko, was born. It struck me that, even if laziness and procrastination and mediocrity and averageness were an option, they were one I couldn’t take any longer.

That would be painting a destiny of the future of my two girls, (Talia, is first born) as one of total mediocrity – rather than a masterpiece. For theirs depends on my venturing into my dreams to turn them into the bricks and mortar that can lead to an inevitable invitation to the black card list of life (forget platinum. That’s where the Bullard’s get invited).

To enjoy my birthday and start to live up to what my heart desires and mind dreams of, I spent the entire morning in bed with the two girls playing a new family game: the ‘World Takeover 2.0’. In it, father and daughters don’t become billionaires, but achieve the soft and the hard material balance. Affecting the world in the most positive of ways whilst creating a huge dent alongside Zola (ghetto is part of us) , Shuttleworth, Motsepe, Branson (we stay crazy), Bullard (we make people laugh and take life less seriously) and Fred Khumalo (guarding elements of black culture).

And at the end of the game, we’re faced with the reality of carving such dreams into bricks and mortar masterpieces. Touchable masterpieces pushed out of all those wet dreams. Will I be that masterpiece, will Talia be. Perhaps Tinyiko? Well, at least the ‘World Takeover 2.0’ game has been devised on the 20th of May at half-50 and has these as its blueprint:

• self-love
• family
• quality life partner
• quality friendships
• health and fitness
• love of others
• travels
• advanced education (and wide reading)
• the appreciation of every single moment
• the material possessions
  

As of half 50, I hope I get it right. With that achieved, the game of taking over the world will be accomplished and a legacy created.

What’s your game plan?

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"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire