Are you letting age define you?

Are you still climbing trees?

The act of "climbing a tree" is something that most of us left behind many years ago. I'm not sure why. Climbing trees is fun! Maybe we stop climbing because we don't like the "idea" of falling. We probably start to think there's more danger in climbing as we get a bit older. I can imagine what the conversation might look like if my wife walked outside to me climbing the big Oak tree in our front yard.

"What are you doing? Get down from there, you're going to fall and break a bone. Are we paid up on disability insurance? (Okay, I added that last one for kicks). 

The point is I'm an adult now and with every year I tack on to my age, I should know that climbing a tree is a bad idea. Right?

I might give this to you when it comes to a physical tree, but the problem is this idea goes with us into every other area of life. We stop climbing the trees of life (our dreams, our passion, etc). With every year that goes by, we think they're just a bit too risky. What happened to us and why are we letting age define us instead of letting actions define us?

Today, I celebrate my birthday and I'm going to celebrate it by letting my actions define me instead of my age. Honestly, age doesn't matter. The more of it I have, the better prepared I should be to climb. With age comes wisdom. I use ropes and pulleys to make climbing the tree easy. Heck, I might even use a ladder.

If I were younger, it would be off to the races with no precautions taken whatsoever. No ropes, no ladder's. Maybe I should have been more scared of the risk back then. 

Every year we should find ourself able to climb bigger trees. Sometimes we think that with age comes the limiting of possibility, but I believe with age comes the reality of possibility. Whether you're in your teens, 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's or beyond there's a tree that has your name on it. 

No matter how many years you have, you should always be climbing. This year and every year, find a tree to climb.