In the past two days I've had - and then lost - five terrific article ideas... after forgetting my most recent brilliant idea a mere two hours ago, it's occurring to me now that I might need a new system. Clearly at 36 my memory isn't as reliable as it was at 26 and it's a real shame because it seems wrong that things like memory should get worse with age... The passing of time should make us stronger, smarter and more brave, but it seems this isn't always, if often, the case.

As I write this I'm sitting in a cafe known to any Vancouverite - Benny's on West Broadway is a small, two storey, rustic and unpretentious icon in the Kitsilano community. Benny's is known for its bagels, late hours and unique art. I haven't been here in at least ten years, yet at one time in my life this was the place my friends and I would camp and discuss how we would one day change the world to better suit our needs. Though I can remember the laughter, the occasional tears and a few, precious awkward moments, I cannot actually recall the content of any conversation in particular. I recognize the stained glass Jesus over the front door - still holding a rather, large joint - the wooden floors, doors and tables....I recognize the sound of youth that surrounds me at this moment but what is new to me is myself, sitting here no different than before, but with nothing familiar about me.

Ten to fifteen years ago as we sat here sometimes through the night, with our cigarettes and our poetry, we never wondered what it would be like when we were forty. We didn't have iPhones or laptops with us; Mark Zuckerberg had not been named the most influential person of 2010 by Time magazine; Facebook didn't really exist. In fact, email was something that was still spoken of with amusement ...it was a different time.

It makes me wonder in what other ways the past decade has changed us. Even though I'm not as naive as I once was, have all those Facebook updates made me any wiser? It would be hard to imagine that getting one's heart broken, giving birth to children and building a business haven't inspired some level of growth; however what I mostly see in myself and in others is life making us more mature and responsible...not to be confused with wiser or more self-aware.

I live in a world where people "have everything" - a life with a job, a partner, couple of kids, couple of cars... A.Life.That.Makes.Sense.

We have allowed ourselves to be vulnerable in love and life to get this point, but the goal it seems, has been to find security - not adventure. This is the daily grind of desperately seeking ordinary: it is the security of a mortgage, a boss and a school calendar that fences us into routine. Every day lived within this security blanket is lived within the confines of a very structured, typically suburban and globally unique articulated way of life.

I might not be able to remember all of my conversations of inspired youth, but I know none of them had to do with a life of sensibility or mortgage payments...maybe that's why I don't update my Facebook status very often.. what is there really to say?

...

An hour later I was down the street in a hot yoga room, sweating out my unfound self when it occurred to me that maybe none of us really ever know the answers to who we are or why we are here...maybe that's why we all try so hard to give each other and ourselves the impression that we do...mostly in very material, superficial ways...

Financial security does give the impression of stability and confidence, but I often wonder if we confuse having stuff with knowing stuff? When I was young, I had nothing and thought I knew everything. I knew what I wanted from life and it had nothing to do with credit ratings. It had to do with experiencing life unbound by these things.

Now I have so much and at times, feel like I know nothing. It gives me and some of my friends, anxiety. It's depressing. And, maybe that is why more than half the yoga room is filled with those of us over 35.. one day we wake up and realize that life has taken over and we aren't sure we like it. We need to stop, connect with who we are again and one breath at a time, find that strength, those memories and take the opportunity to reconnect to the life we really wanted...a life we want to Facebook about.  

Perhaps it isn't just passing the time that makes us more courageous and self-actualized; perhaps we need to be experiencing minutes and hours in a way that keeps us facing fear rather than turning away from it. Maybe I don't need a new system as it seems to me at this very moment that the systems are what keep getting in my way. If I was more in the moment again so that when I had an idea, I stopped and wrote it down instead of worrying that I might be a few minutes late, I wouldn't lose those moments one can never recreate...no matter how good the system.

...

A week later I was back in Benny's with an old friend. He and I have lived very different lives over the decade that has passed since we last sat here, poetry and cigarettes in hand.

Though he has never married or had a family, ironically, he finds himself in many ways in a similar place to myself. ...searching for meaning, lacking enthusiasm about the" best years of our lives", feeling inwardly lost despite outward purpose and success. It really makes me wonder, what does it take to be fulfilled and happy?

How do we ever know when we are on the right path? Will we ever find out if we cannot be brave enough to leap over fences at any age and try new things?

Age can be a mental block. The best years of our lives are probably not lived sequentially but rather, when we are 110, we will be able to look back and pick out certain years throughout our lives that were the best... a few from our youth, at least two from our thirties and possibly many more from our forties, fifties and beyond...I don't think there will be "a time" in our lives, as in a particular decade, that overshadows all other times completely, but there will be years, like certain vintages of wine, that stand out and remind us that we were brave, we listened to our hearts and effected the kind of change in our lives that brought us forward to another level of fulfillment and happiness. The kind of happiness that can only come from being really true to ourselves, no matter how old.