Trivialities in Life Series #1: Proof and other evidences that life really begins at 40

Life is full of surprises. We never know what will become of us once we reaches the age of forty.

I turned forty this year 2011. If I'll go back to my teenage years where my pursuit for knowledge was at its highlights, I am reassuring myself that I can still double such feat even if I'm forty.

Many popular persons in world history proved that being forty is not a hindrance to accomplish something bigger than their lives.

I can vouch that being forty is the new twenty in my lifetime. My other friends are also accomplishing enormous achievements as they reached the age of 40.

There are plenty of time to reinvent ourselves and become successful in the future.

Don't be surprised if you're familiar when the following persons who permanently changed the course of human history because of their outstanding achievements.

1. Howard Florey - was exactly 40 when he was working out on hot to mass-produce penicillin.
2. Jonas Salk - devised the vaccine against polio.
3. Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, with Edmund Hillary, was at his fortieth year when he became the first to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.
4. Marcus Aurelius - an emperor, gained control of the Roman Empire in A.D. 161 when he was forty.
5. Ferdinand Magellan - discovered and named the Pacific Ocean after celebrating his fortieth birthday while en route to Cape Horn.
6. William Fox Talbot - helped invent photography when he was forty.
7. Michael Faraday - invented the electric generator at the age of 40.
8. Enrico Fermi - was working on the first sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction when he got the idea at the squash court in Chicago at the age of 40.
9. Winston Churchill - after resigning from the British War Cabinet in 1915 over the fiasco in the Dardanelles went on to fight and win a second world war at the age of 40.
10. Henry Ford - became immensely rich while founding the Ford Motor Company until he reached 40.
11. Aristotle Onassis - bought his first fleet of war-surplus ships at 40 and became a shipping magnate.
12. Thomas Carlyle - had written his greatest work, The French Revolution by the time he was 40. A freak incident forced him to rewrite it again when his servant used it for lighting the fire at his fireplace.
13. James Joyce - finished Ulysses by the age of 40 and became famous because of his work.
14. Friedrich Nietzsche - created his own school of philosophy through his writing Thus Spake Zarathustra when he was 40.

In don't know why they associated the number 40 in many music countdowns, music lists.

When I was on the radio working both as disk jockey and news writer, I don't know how radio moguls associated the said figures in making music selections for the countdown.

There's already a daily Top 10, a weekly Top 20 and the long list of having countdown for the week, Top 40.

Possible reasons:

1. to have a feel good impressions on the artists and songwriters as well
2. a two-hour presentation will satisfy radio listeners
3. to fill up the boredom during Sundays as every staff on the radio are having their family day-off
4. just a music strategy to sell records

While searching for the reasons as to why this music-playing format is added, I opened my Radio Conundrum book and early radio programmers reasoned that they can easily distinguish the music trend for the young and adult listeners.

Okay, if that's the case, radio airplay will usually base the selling capacity of a song based from the countdown at the music stores. Furthermore, many competing singers, musician and songwriters will know how their interpretations, records and produced albums fare in the market.

I should be proud of myself for reaching this age. It's a reinvention period for most of the young adults, since there will be another 20 years more to be called a 'dual citizen' in a jest for being an elderly or senior citizen.

Those popular persons accomplishing tremendous works in science, politics, literary and related areas serve as inspiration to this hubber.

I've been thinking on reviving my aspiration to be an:

• inventor
• songwriter
• painter
• teacher
• author

or just be a jack of all trades, master of some.

Really, we have a lot to reconsider as we reach the age of forty. I observed that some forty-something local businessmen went back to school to finish their degrees, thesis and all.

Traits on accomplishing something BIG when your age is 40 are:

• patience - lots and lots of it;
• perseverance - or you can call it resiliency;
• talents - whatever knowledge or ideas that are stored in your brain, use it wisely!

At this age, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have to go out, seek opportunities that will come your way, strive and aspire for excellence. You can do it it you'll surpass your personal best.

Others have already succeed, why can't I and so do you?