Ep 7: What Does Your Birthday Mean?
Episode 7: Transcript
Intro
Sharyn 0:33
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Medium Well with Psychic Sharyn Rose. This is Sharyn. Today’s my birthday! It’s my birthday – I can cry if I want to… Am I aging myself? I got to tell you something – today is kind of an interesting birthday for me. And the reason I’m saying that is because every year on my birthday – I don’t do, most people do affirmations, or not affirmations… but what do they call it? The new plans for the following year… a new year’s resolutions, is that what they call it, resolutions? Yeah, I don’t do that. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I tend to on my birthday sort of sit down and say how’s it been, Sharyn? How you’ve been doing? What’s it been like for you in the past year? And where are you now compared to where you planned on being? And how’s it looking? And where do you want to be a year from now? And that’s how I sort of work my life. It doesn’t mean I always get it right either. Because I really, I really don’t always get it right. But this year is… this year’s an interesting one for me. In my family – and I’m talking about my kids, my husband, my grandkids, myself – we don’t tend to…. with the kids, we always celebrate the birthdays, of course, we always do right, they’re milestones for them. But with the adults, we don’t tend to make a big deal about birthdays, unless it’s a decade change.
What Is Your Birthday Meaning?
And this particular birthday sees me looking squarely at a decade change, which is a big decade change for me – this is a… this is, I’m going into a decade that I actually really never had a plan for, never really… never really thought about actually living this long to be very honest with you. It wasn’t something I gave any thought to. But I’m sliding into this next decade, and next October in 2022 will be that decade change. So this particular year, I’ve got I want to finish up a lot of things that I’ve started. I want to start the next decade with a whole lot of new things that I can say, wow, look at this. And we can roll with this, roll with that, drop this, drop that, however, we want to go ahead.
The one thing that I notice about my generation and about the people who are my age, in my generation, gosh, lots of them are retired. Lots of them have already quit their jobs. And there, and there, I don’t know what they’re doing. And, and some of them are still working in environments that they just dislike so much. I can remember having a conversation with a friend of mine a while back. And I remember the conversation, she was talking about retirement. And I have never thought of retirement. I never thought of retiring. I don’t know really what retirement looks like and but I remember her saying to me. Oh, she was so excited about retiring. She couldn’t wait to get away from this job she had and yada yada yada. And so I said to her, I says what are you going to do? What are you gonna do when you retire? And she listed off a bunch of things. But basically what it boiled down to is she was going to do exactly what she wanted. And I took a look at my own life at that point. And I’m already doing exactly what I want, why would I change? So I think it’s a concept. I think the concept of retirement is really more prevailing amongst people who work for others in their businesses and other businesses. And because I work for myself, I tend to not really have a desire to retire because I’m doing what I absolutely love. My work is… I love it so much! You know, and so that brings me around to, how old is old, and how is age-relevant in our society?
Does Negative Affectivity Change With Age?
I can remember when I was in downtown Calgary one time and I was in my 30s and I was with a girlfriend of mine and we were shopping. And you know, downtown Calgary at that back in that day, you could park your cars along the street until four o’clock. And then if you didn’t move your car by four o’clock they would get towed. The tow truck drivers were always parked on the corners because they knew there was going to always be these people that never moved their cars. Well, this one particular day, my girlfriend and I went back to get the car. And we thought we were going to be on time – we weren’t, we were late, our car was gone, as was the vehicle of two young men that were also standing there kind of looking for their car and another woman standing looking for her car. And of course, they’d all been towed. So we start hoofing it over to where the impound is and got to go pay our fine and get our cars out, etc, etc. The woman is, and so we’re joking around with the guys, I mean, the car has been towed, what are you gonna do? You know, the woman was dressed very well, she was dressed in a business suit. And I mean, we, my girlfriend and I were dressed were modest, just as well, like we were, we were shopping so, and the young men had just gotten off work as well. So everybody was kind of downtown dressed. And but this woman wouldn’t walk with us, she wouldn’t have anything to do with it. She wouldn’t even talk to us. She walked away ahead of us. We tried to catch up to her so we could have a conversation and kind of include her in, you know, the bantering we were doing in the fun we’re having, she wouldn’t walk with us, she wouldn’t have anything do with us. And all of a sudden, I remember looking at her as I was walking. And I remember looking around at the people that I was with all of them, I knew all of them that I was with, I knew they had to be a bit younger than me. But I was pretty sure she was younger than me too. But boy, she acted older. Wow, she acted older. And I thought I wonder if she’s walking through her life with this… this feeling of burden on her and this feeling of being I don’t know, just encumbered with life and just not, not really having a great life not really having any fun.
I remember back when I was just a little girl. I remember we used to go on little road trips with mom and dad. And whenever we stopped at a gas station, of course, the kids all hopped out, we would use the washroom and then we’d maybe get ourselves a treat and then we’d be back in the car. And of course, when you’re on a long road trip and, and you’re tired of being in the car, and I went into the washroom and I used the washroom and I was washing my hands and there was a lady standing looking in the mirror. And she was just standing perfectly still looking in the mirror into her own eyes. And I remember stopping and I looked at her, and I just looked at her and I just… I could feel her and I looked at her and the sadness, and the pain in her eyes and the, just the joyless aspect that was coming from her. It made me think there was no way, she didn’t even seem to know I was there. But I just really promised myself there was no way that I was ever going to allow myself to look like that no matter how old I got because to me, I don’t know, I was probably maybe seven. She looked like she was old to me. And she’s probably in her 20s or 30s. But to me that was old. And I just promised myself I would never allow my eyes to look that dead or that sad or that unhappy.
What Is The Best Thing About Getting Older?
And over the years, I have done lots of workshops and taken lots of training. And I’ve had a few businesses, some went really well some crashed and burned. I’ve had all kinds of experiences in my lifetime. At this point, already I’ve raised a family, I’ve been married three times, I’ve moved right across Canada and back. I’ve done a lot of really some crazy things, some really brilliant things. And I’ve had a lot of life experiences. And when I look at the decade change that’s coming, and I look at what’s ahead of me, and I look at the opportunities, that’s all I see are opportunities. I don’t see aging out of a system. I don’t see where I’m ever going to be redundant. As a lot of people talk about retirement, you become redundant. And nobody wants to have anything to do with you. Or even as you become older, nobody wants to have to do with you. I will always be busy. I will always have clients. I will always be writing and I will always be teaching and mentoring. I will always be doing workshops, and I’ll be doing this podcast hopefully till the cows come home. And you know what’s really interesting, this podcast, even though I’m facing this major decade change this podcast is a brand new product. It’s a brand new service that we’re offering out there to the community. And I just wonder how many people that are my age are looking this new decade in the eye, are retiring or saying that’s it. I’m not doing anymore, or have given up because they don’t believe they can. We’re in a highly technical age right now.
What Is The Point Of Birthdays?
And every once in a while… oh, I get frustrated. Oh, yeah, I know. It’s not really just age-wise. It’s not it’s not even generational. It’s everybody gets frustrated with the technical aspect of people you know, but I finally am learning how to surround myself with a team. Having people around me that know how to do the things I don’t know how to do. Don’t try and know it all. Don’t try and figure it all out myself. But I look at all these people who have stopped, literally stopped living, they’ve stopped there, they’re sitting in their homes, and they’re watching a lot of tvs, they’re going back and forth to the doctors, the doctors keeping the doctors really busy. And of course, right now, we’re still prime in the middle of COVID. I’m married to a man who’s 10 years younger than me. So that kind of keeps things fresh too, because his decade change that’s coming up is he’s changing decades, when I change decades, because 10 years, the gap between us. And it’s really interesting because he’s gonna hit it first, he’s gonna hit the new decade for him before I hit the new decade for me. So we’ll see how he handles it. But I guess what I’m trying to say is, what is your, why when you get up in the morning? What is it that you dream about? How do you structure your life? And how do birthdays affect you? Are they just a big party? Do you just ignore them? Do you celebrate them? Do you cherish your growing years? Do you cherish the years that you’ve been able to contribute to society? Or do you just kind of rue the fact that you’ve been doing stuff for, I don’t know, 10-20-30-40 years that you just really, really didn’t like, that we tend to get into a rut. And I absolutely dislike being in a rut. I refuse to be in a rut. I won’t be in a rut. And so for me, it’s got to be new, it’s got to be fresh, it’s got to be going, it’s got to be working. And I gotta tell you, having a I have a producer that helps me with a podcast that does all of the stuff that I don’t know how to do. She’s absolutely brilliant. I love her. She’s just, she’s really good. And she is highly technically skilled. This is a new project for her too – she’s just really bringing her podcast career too. She’s from radio, she’s got a radio background. So she’s bringing all her know-how into this industry because this is what she really wants to do. And in my particular case, you know, I go back to the days of somebody like Ann Landers. And Dear Abby. If you remember in the newspapers when newspapers were cool. There was Dear Abby, and there was Ann Landers. And I think a couple of them were on the radio too. I can’t remember which one… but right now, talk shows, Q and A’s, where people ask in the newspapers – they would send in a question for Dear Abby or Ann Landers about relationships or about work or about family or about health. And Dear Abby or Ann Landers would reply to it. And I was just hooked on those. Oh, I thought they were so fun. And back in the day, I also found myself writing for this cool little magazine that was a local magazine where I did the same thing – it was, Dear Sharyn, and the questions would come in and I would answer the questions. And it was very, very cool. I really, really liked it. It was really fun. But I always dreamt of being a Dear Abby or an Ann Landers. That sounds so funny, doesn’t it? When I was in grade 3 – and this is how I’ve been influenced my whole life – when I was in grade 3, I used to rush home from school and it was a matter of running down the hill and just giving everything I could because from 12 to 1215 Earl Nightingale was on the radio and it was a similar thing. Earl Nightingale would talk about how to be better, how to live better, how to be healthier… I just loved him so much. Grade 3!. And I was literally would get home and I would just like to sit quietly and just listen for that 15 minutes. I just hung on every word that Earl Nightingale said. And as I grew into adult years and was able to stay connected to the energy of Earl Nightingale and know that he was a mentor for a lot of people. And that he guided and taught a lot of people. It made me want to do the same thing. It made me want to be like Earl Nightingale and be like Ann Landers and be like, Dear Abby, but here I am sitting here, sliding into a decade I didn’t even know I was gonna live to see… sliding into it. I’m in the last year of this decade I’m in now. And I have the opportunity to wrap up a lot of the things that I’ve been doing over my lifetime that I no longer wish to do, and take on the new things that I really want to do. And of course, one of them is this podcast. And I am just I look around my society and I look around my world and there are so many angry people hurt people, sad people.
What Is Your Why In Life?
There are people that are disappointed with the way their lives have turned out. There are people that are disappointed with the people around them. There are people living in grief and depression and sadness and powerlessness. Those are the people that I just really want to help. I want to help lift them and make them feel better because in the process of doing that, I serve myself as well. And I absolutely love the idea of being productive, and being active, and being capable, and being mentally acute and sharp and aware and physically, sound, mentally and emotionally sound for another decade. Oh my goodness, I can only get wiser, can’t I? I’m sliding into what I think is known holistically as the crone years. And the word Crone, I don’t know, I don’t really care for the word, Crone, I’d rather think of it as my wisdom years are just going to go on forever and ever. But when you think about it, when somebody offers a story, and they’ve got many, many, many years behind them of experience, sometimes those stories are just captivating, aren’t they? I could sit all day and just listen to storytellers tell their stories. And a good example is the new movement that’s going on right now where there’s a real growing, growing awareness of what’s been going on with the Aboriginal people here in Canada. And we just had the first day of remembrance of this ceremony for the Aboriginals yesterday, and truth and remembrance and reconciliation. And, I heard stories, I sat and listened to the Aboriginal people talk about their lives and their stories and their journey and, and they’re not just talking about their actual years they’ve been on the planet, but the path of their ancestors as well. It’s fascinating. I absolutely love it, it just, it just makes me so so happy to know that people are learning from one another by sharing their stories.
Outro
So, and to make this a shorter story – haha – I just want to say thank you so much for being here. And thank you for listening. And thank you for tuning in, tapping in while I get these podcasts under my belt, so I’m not becoming another victim of pod-fade. That I can continue on, and I will go past the 10 and the 20 and the 30 mark in the podcast because I am building a beautiful support system around me and I love to storytelling, and I might be changing decades really soon here. And I’m sliding today the birthday that’s saying, how did you do this year? What are you going to do next year is very much alive. And I want to encourage you no matter how old you are, no matter how young you are, or encourage you to use your birthday to use as a guidepost instead of New Year’s Day because those resolutions never last very long. There are a lot of you know, people that just make a wish and then let it go. But use your birthday because it’s personally yours. And you can share what your goals and dreams are with people that you really really trust and they’ll support you they’ll have your back. I think it’d be a lot of fun. So happy birthday to me today. I am delightfully thrilled to be on this journey and I really am thrilled to be on this journey with you. Thank you so very much for tuning in to Medium well with Psychic Sharyn Rose, and I hope that your next birthday is going to be an absolute blast. I love you. Take care. Bye for now.
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