If you follow every dream, you might get lost....

Neil Young has a song that says, "If you follow every dream, you might get lost."  I think he was dealing with middle age when he wrote that.

You can't follow every dream.  You have to choose one thing over another, and that decision leads to another decision which carries you to other decisions and gradually a path is formed that defines the direction of your life.

At 50 I look back on my path and I consider the direction it is taking me.  I freeze in time and look at the decisions I'm making today and the ones I will likely make tomorrow.  This path leads in the direction I chose, but now I fully consider the impact I am having on the earth, the impact on other living things and especially the impact I am having on those who have chosen to walk my path with me.

Life moves on with or without me.  I am lucky, I'm alive at 50.  In a few of the countries I've worked in, the average male lives to the age of 47.  My stomach is full, my house is warm and to my knowledge, nobody is planning on killing me anytime soon.  So I have the privilege of taking the time to look back on my life and reflect on the decisions I've made and the path of life I have lived up to this point.

In hind sight, many of my choices were not the right ones.  They've caused me and others to suffer.  But I made them thinking they were the best choices available.  Some I was able to correct, others I had to just learn from.  Many I would like to choose to forget.  I think the real important ones, the ones that really matter, you don't forget, even if you want to.

There are regrets and as I approach 50, I can get lost in regrets.  Thank goodness I can't remember everything.

I have three more days until I turn 50.  It has been a good run.  The gifts I have been given in this life have been more than I could ever give back.

So I make a pact with myself that I will give more, these last few years left of my life.  Somehow I will help the world become a better place and that when I can't, I'll gracefully bow out of the way.

This is a picture taken in Angola, a beautiful country full of beautiful people. When I was there, they were just recovering from their 27 year civil war.  Look closely at the bullet holes in the building behind me.  Now look at how clean the street is.  I tell you, these people, this country, will someday rise to the beauty they really are inside.