Once a person reaches their senior years should all the aspirations have been completed? First of all I guess I should make clear just which definition of the noun I am talking about. The aspiration I am talking about is:

strong desire, longing, or aim; ambition: intellectual aspirations; a goal or objective desired

[Aspirating or taking a breath is something all of us need to do. To stop doing that is to literally stop living 🙂 ] Now with all this silliness taken care of let’s move on the to topic at hand.

When we talk about aspirations it is typically about our youth. Things like “he aspired to be president one day”. But is it proper or healthy for seniors to have aspirations too? If you ask the younger population I’m sure most would say that seniors should have already accomplished everything they dream of before that time in their life, so the answer would probably be no. Of course I can’t answer this question for all seniors but I can answer it for myself.  I continue to have dreams for what I want to accomplish with my life.  I hope that I never comes to the day when that isn’t the case.

One of the perfect, and probably most used, stories about senior aspirations was Colonel Sanders who started up his chicken business  after he turned sixty-five. There are many seniors who have accomplished great things in their later lives. But what about us more common seniors? Of course that answer lies inside each of us but I think it is healthy for all seniors to dream and aspire to future goals. No, we don’t have to start a multi-billion dollar fast-food chain but what about aspiring to make a difference in your local community?

I will reluctantly give you a couple of my personal aspirations as examples. I personally aspire to help those in the community around me to have at least a few good meals every week. I do that by cooking a couple of days a week at a local soup kitchen and providing many of the ingredients that are missing from even the most elementary recipes.  I don’t aspire to end world hunger but if I can ease it just a little in my community…  I also aspire to being a better follower of Jesus Christ on a day-by-day basis. Part of that is by making Christians  aware of things that they might not normally  think about. I do this via my RedLetterLiving.net blog.  Without these aspirations, and a few other similar to them, I’m sure that life in my senior years would not have nearly as much purpose for me as it does. But with these aspirations I can’t wait to wake up each morning. I feel I have accomplished more in my senior years than I have any other period in my life.

I am not giving you my personal examples of aspirations to boast or to make you feel somehow inadequate and I sincerely hope you don’t take that to be the case.  I am only giving them to you as maybe a little incentive to , if you haven’t already, make up a list for your personal life in your senior years. We can all make a difference in this world no matter how old we are.

One of my favorite quotes is from Gandhi

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

The most significant accomplishments in the world are made in very minute steps by ordinary people like you and me. Singly they might not seem like much but put together with others they are mighty indeed. Get off your couch and aspire to contribute something in your senior years.