March 15, 2025

I turned 63 years old this week. I’m quite good with it. As they say, it’s way better than the alternative! I decided to share some random birthday thoughts in this post, so here we go.

• I don’t know much significance with year 63. But the Beatles sang about being 64, and Medicare comes at age 65.
• Next year, my Beatles birthday will be on Friday the 13th. That’s probably worth having a party for.
• I saw a birthday card that said, “You are not just turning 63. You are turning 21 for the 3rd time in your life!” I like that. A little factorization that I can finally drink to. Again.
• My friend Wendy is a local school superintendent who sends a hand-written birthday note, usually a full one or two paragraphs, to each of the employees in her district. That’s incredible. My friend Nancy mails hand-written birthday cards to her friends, and I love getting mine each year. I never did that. In fact, I know in my heart I am simply not that good. But it’s nice to know there are people out there who make people’s day once a year with their care and effort.
• I pale in comparison to Wendy and Nancy. I am pretty darn good about calling my family members on their birthdays. I do my best to wish my Facebook friends a happy birthday. I think I get it right 70% of the time. I’m grateful for my friends who remember, and I am grateful for my friends who don’t.
• As I enter my 64th year, I know that my daily to-do list is more important than ever. One of my daily goals was inspired by my friend Rick, who in turn received his inspiration from leadership guru John C. Maxwell. In essence, try to use your words to make someone’s day, every day. Small acts of kindness, words of encouragement or appreciation, listening even when you don’t think you have time to listen . . . it is important and it can be life changing. I put it on my to do list every day and do my best to make it happen.
• For the first 58 years of my life, I could always count on a birthday card coming in the mail from my mom. That’s no longer true in her memory-challenged state. I’ll be visiting her in April, and I look forward to it. I’m grateful for all of those years when she knew me as well as anybody, and I know she still loves me fiercely, in spite of, well, in spite of being me.
• My three rules for maintaining my memory, based on self-help books, all of the articles I’ve read, and advice from my mom’s memory doctors are pretty simple:
  • Challenge yourself mentally every day
  • Exert yourself physically every day, and go hard as often as you can
  • Be social – interact with others and enjoy being part of something bigger than yourself
• My Wordle streak is at 751 – I have successfully completed the Wordle 751 days in a row. No strikeouts. No days missed. So for those of you who say I have not accomplished anything in my 63 years, take that!
• In my office at work, I had a framed picture of Mahatma Gandhi with his famous quote, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” I remain all in for that. If I die tomorrow, I cannot overstate how wonderful the experiences of love, laughter, and wonder have been in my life. But I hope to live much longer, and I’m going to keep on learning the whole way.
• I weigh a little more than I want to on my 63^rd birthday. I’m eating pretty healthily and reasonably, though I eat more desserts than I should. I really don’t want to eat less, so my plan is to exercise more. This whole knee surgery recovery thing made me more inactive than I’m used to, and that did not help. But it’s time to get moving. Maybe I should blame everything that doesn’t go my way on my knee surgery. Then again, maybe I’ll just take responsibility and do something about it.
• And in the spirit of learning like I will live forever, I was reading Maria Shriver’s most recent Sunday Paper post. She can be a voice of calm and reason, even in the tempestuous spaghetti-throwing times we are all now living.

When the ground shifts, I’ve found the best thing to do is to be of service. Go where the light is. Go where the love is. Go where the people who are doing beautiful things are.

And guess what? They are everywhere. Yes, they are. They are in houses of worship. They are volunteering at hospitals. They are running soup kitchens. They are working in schools. They are coaching kids—and coaching adults. They are writing books and touring the country to share the lessons from the frontlines of their lives.

So many of you here write to me every week about your purpose, your life’s work, and how it motivates you. You are the healers. The uniters. The artists. The architects of change among us. Just writing that makes me smile.

Go where the light is. I love it.

We all need to find that light in our lives. We all need to do our best to be that light for others. As Maxwell said, try to make someone’s day every day. My birthday wish for all of us is to find and/or be that light as often as possible this year.

Post #129 on www.drmdmatthews.com

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NOTES

If you did not get the spaghetti-throwing refernce. it comes from my last post. You can find that here.

I don’t read every post she writes, but Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper is a calming and insightful read.

As a principal and as a superintendent, I used to kind of joke that my job was to go to meetings all day. People filled my days with appointments, most often to discuss problems and concerns. That was true for at least 95% of the appointments maybe 99%. I was always grateful for the 1% to 5% who made appointments just to share their appreciation and bring light into my life. In fact, if I based the performance of my school or my district on what I heard in my office, I had the worst school or district in the world. The antidote for that, or the truth serum I used to combat the negativity, was going out and visiting classrooms. That is where the light was. That is where the joy was. Many of you joy and light providers are still in contact with me and read my posts. Thank you for being there to remind me of all that is right in the world. You gave me the strength to do my best to address the real problems in my school and my district, and you made me proud to be a part of a joyful and light-bringing organization.

And just to be clear, I’m not complaining about all of those who brought challenges and problems to my attention. A few of them, sure. But all of those problems were important, and there were benefits: (1) I learned about some things (or about some persons) that were not working, (2) I had the opportunity to make those problems go away or at least lessen their negative impact, and (3) were it not for those problems, I’m not sure my job was necessary!