Today I turn 50. So, in getting ready to turn 50, I went to Wikipedia and found what was written about 50 and this is what I found.

50 is the natural number following 49 and preceding 51. That is a lot of help.

50 years is the golden wedding anniversary. That sounds good!

50 is the traditional number of years in a jubilee period. This is pretty cool!

50 is a magic number in nuclear physics. I like magic!

50 is the atomic number of tin. Ok, tin! Come on!

50 is half-century. This makes me feel old.

What do I feel about 50? Until recently, I was not certain about how I felt about turning 50 and until I thought about this being my 50th year, today was just another birthday. As I was exploring my 50th birthday and having a hard time putting how I felt to words, a good friend of mine asked me to pick one word or phrase to describe each decade in my life starting with 10 and this is what I came up with.

At 10, the word that comes to mind is play. At 20, learning. At 30, growing. At 40, go within. And now, looking at 50, I get being magnificent. These words put my life more into perspective and looking at the word for 50, makes me feel really good about turning 50 as long as I feel into the word - inside me. When I look outside me for magnificent, then I tend to compare myself to others and that makes magnificent feel like a burden and I know I do not need a burden.

So today, and each day in this decade, I am going to get up and look inside and see what magnificent looks like and do my best to bring that forward as I head into my day and when I go to bed, only measure myself against myself and being gentile with myself, be grateful for who I have been that day, what I have done, and who I will become in this magnificent decade!