So. 50. The big 5 0! Half a century. Wow, I’ve pulled into the station!

What does 50 bring you? A perspective that you didn’t have when you were 40, 30, or 20! Joint aches and pains, some additional lines on your face, the need for reading glasses (which actually happens in your Forties), and more gray hair…everywhere! Hopefully it means less interest in the things that don’t matter, and a greater acknowledgement of and focus on the things that do. Not sweating the small stuff!

I’m less interested in what people think than ever before. We’re all human, we make mistakes, experience joy, sorrow, and everything in between. If someone wants to judge me based on a perception of who I am, my experiences, my choices, or because of gossip they’ve heard about me, there’s nothing that I can do about it. Not caring enables me to continue on my path doing the things that I want to do, and doesn’t give them any power over me. It’s my life, my choices that I’m entitled to make and lessons in it for me to learn, so I try to embrace it all, even though some of it may be difficult and challenging.

My dreams and needs are different than they were when I was younger, in every aspect of my life! There’s a lot that comes with being an artist in the public eye. The hoopla and fabulosity thing is overrated and isn’t what motivates me to do what I do. I’m also less impressed with money, power, and position, and more moved by people who are empathetic and understanding, and don’t walk around feeling entitled, like the world owes them something. God that’s unattractive! Beauty to me is the complete package, not any one thing.

I am looking forward to my Fifties being a great period in my life! My Forties were a decade of change and self-discovery in a way that I hadn’t experienced. It was amazing and wonderful, productive, challenging, difficult, and full of lessons. And the reality of it is that we don’t stop learning and growing until we leave this life, and we will always encounter bumps along the way, so the whole notion that it dissipates as we get older, I think is a big, huge fallacy.

Being able to see things free from the stuff that bound us when we were younger opens us up to new things that will give us new lessons, challenges and rewards. After all, how bad can it be? I can still kick and I can still stretch!

For more information on Colton Ford, visit his facebook page or follow him on Twitter. All of Colton’s music is available on iTunes. Photos: Kevin McDermott.