The 40/40 List

I sat down the other day trying to come up with a list of 40 things to accomplish before my 40th birthday. It’s turned out to be one of the most challenging personal projects I have ever undertaken. I’ve been reflecting on who I am, who I think I am, and who I want to truly be.


It’s a wonderful and sad time for me. For the first time in 20 years I feel good and healthy in a way I never have before; and the prospect of turning 40 has created in me great reflection and longing. The list of goals left me wondering so much about what is missing in my life; yet having a hard time coming up with things to accomplish reminded me of the amazing things that I’ve already done. I realize that the most important things that my heart needs to accomplish live in a swirl of experiences that no list can compare to, and by far, I’ve seen so much.

I’ve stood at the top and bottom of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the World Trade Center in New York City. I’ve seen London Bridge and Big Ben and stood in Trafalgar Square.

I shook the hands of a President (Clinton), met a Civil Rights hero (Rep. John Lewis), and met a Nobel Laureate (Toni Morrison). I’ve stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world at the desk of the late President Kennedy and his brother Ted.

I’ve loved and lost and loved again and had my heart broken; and woken up and gotten out of bed the next day.

I found the guy of my childhood dreams, and learned that his dreams were different and there wouldn’t be a happy ending; and I lived through it.

I’ve finally learned why they say that youth is wasted on the young; and in the most profound moment of my existence so far, I’ve held a newborn human being in my arms (not mine), and truly understood that it is possible to love someone else more than myself – and know that I would lay my life down for the love of that person.

Maybe the 40-40 list that’s difficult to come up with rings a bell that forces us to acknowledge that accomplishments can’t be listed off and completed in short spaces of time; they must be lived and earned day by day. I suspect that the most amazing goal I can come up with is to make peace with my heart, for the things I lost, never found, and never will. Maybe if I could do that, the rest of it would be child’s play.