Time to give you reflections from an almost old man. On Tuesday, I celebrated my forty ninth birthday. Yes, it's just another day for me. You know, birthdays stop being truly important event for me a long time ago. But I have great friends and family that still won't to celebrate it, whether it's to a text message or a phone call, or take me out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and have the staff come out and try to embarrass me by singing Happy Birthday, because everybody knows
that that's not my thing. But it's part of the fun. But part of the reason why I say reflections from an almost old man is I remember distinctly as a kid. Now. As a kid, you realistically think that somebody twenty five or older is old, but you really put a number in your head. And the number for me and my friends when we were growing up was always, well, we're not going to be old men till we turn fifty. Here I am at forty nine. I'm one year away
from fifty. Next year, God willing, I'll hit that milestone. So yes, these are reflections from an almost old man, because I'm not there yet. I'm not quite old, so maybe I don't have the wisdom yet to share with you this morning because I'm an almost old man. I'm not an old man yet. They say that you're only as old as you feel well. Some mornings, I don't know that I like that saying, because some morning somebody
feel like an eighty year old man. Other mornings I feel fresh and alive, like maybe I'm a young eighteen year old again. And then I get up and realize I'm not when things crank and hurt. But young people, I'm going to talk to you for a second. I'm going to talk to you and maybe you'll listen to this almost old man. For those of you graduating from high school entering college for the first time, you may have been grown up. You may have grown up in
a Christian conservative household. Everything that you believe is about to be challenged when you walk into that college. You're going to have professors. They're going to tell you that every value that your parents instilled in you is one hundred percent incorrect. You're going to have professors. They're going to tell you that everything that you believe about politics is wrong. It's own you to stand up to that and to not fall for these egg headed professors nonsense.
A lot of kids do because again they see that title of doctor in front of their name, and they instantly think to themselves, well, that's doctor Jones. So doctor Jones, absolutely, it's somebody that I should be able to trust. He's somebody that is clearly smarter than my dad, definitely smarter than my mom. They don't have doctor in front of their names. So everything they told me must be wrong.
It's not stick with the values that have been instilled in you because your parents knew what they were doing. Question everything means question the professor as well. I'm okay with question everything. I'm okay with you doing your own research and coming up with your own values and opinions. Fine with that, but make them your own. Don't allow them to be the professors. And don't come home and tell your parents that they were wrong about everything because
doctor Jones told you that they were. And that's just not the way you should be doing anything. Other advice I have for you is, if you are of faith, hold on to your faith, stick with it. If you have not yet found your faith, you need to, and you need to find it fast. Ask to come into your heart to forgive you of your sins. Tomorrow is not promised. There's a reason why I said than in a year's time, I'll celebrate my fiftieth God willing, because
it's tomorrow is not promised. Tonight. You could lay down, go to sleep and never wake up again. You can leave your house this morning on your way to school and never make it there. Life is a gift. It's precious. We don't understand that as we're going through it. We focus too much on the hardships. I'm guilty of that too. I'm not being judgmental of you. I'm probably one of the world's worse at focusing on the hardships, the fact that I've made it this long in my age without
ever getting married, without having children. But our hardships are not what we need to be focused on. We need to focus on the fact that this is a gift. This is a gift from God. He gave us this life. He gave us these opportunities to experience life, to find friendships, to love and lose love, to feel hurt sometimes and sometimes yes, hurt is good for you may not believe
it at the time, but it can be. If I have any more advice for you young people from this almost old man it would be don't rush into relationships if you believe that the person you're at this high school sweetheart or this freshman girlfriend. I'm not saying that they won't be the love of your life, because they might be. But if they're not, that's okay too. If you grow up and you end up never marrying, like not me, that's fine as well. Live your life, experience things. Travel.
If you've always wanted to go to a Cubs game and see Wrigley Field, do it. If you've always wanted to go to a Red Sox game, see Fenway Park, do it. If you want to go to lambeau Field, if you want to go to Notre Dame Stadium to
Brian Denny Stadium, do it. Experience life. Make sure that when you reach the almost old man stage of your life that you can look back and say, you know what, I've enjoyed myself up into this point, and as I crossed that threshold next year, God willing of the Big five, Oh, I'm hoping that I'm adding more fun memories and those personal tragedies, those personal problems that tend to get focused on way more than we should allow it to be that those are not the majority of the things that
I reflect on as I reach that milestone next year. This has been mourning coffee with an almost old man, My bad. This has been mourning coffee with the right side. And I'm your host, the almost old man, Jack Fairchild's and we're a part of the Midnight Ride Network.