There's a message I keep seeing directed at women my age, and while I understand the good intentions behind it, I've started to question it.

"Your best years are still ahead of you!"

I appreciate the enthusiasm. I really do. But who decided that the years I've already lived weren't pretty spectacular?

I'm turning 50 in January, and I've been thinking quite a bit about the different chapters of my life. I've had some incredible experiences, made decisions that completely changed my direction, loved people, lost people, and discovered things about myself that I never could have predicted.

And I wouldn't trade those years for the promise of something better.

Do we really need to rank our decades?

I loved my 20s. I was singing, performing, chasing opportunities, falling in love, and figuring out how to make a life with the man who would become my husband.

There was an excitement to that time that I remember fondly. I didn't have everything figured out, and thank goodness for that! Some of my favorite memories came from having absolutely no idea where life was going to take me.

In my 30s, I became a yoga teacher and worked as a consultant copywriter for corporate clients. My professional life looked very different from the one I'd imagined when I was younger, but I was discovering new things I loved doing and finding ways to use skills I'd developed in entirely different careers.

And then came my 40s, when I started teaching yoga online at 43.

I certainly hadn't planned on building an online yoga studio. In fact, if you'd told the younger version of me that some of my greatest professional satisfaction would come from teaching women all over the world through a computer screen, I probably would have laughed.

But here we are, and I love what I've created.

Does that mean my 40s were better than my 20s or 30s? I don't think so. They were different, and I was different.

I don't want my old life back, but I wouldn't erase it either.

One of the things I find fascinating about getting older is how easy it becomes to look back at previous versions of ourselves and judge them with the knowledge we have today.

I can think of plenty of things I would do differently now. I can also remember being completely convinced that I was making the right decisions at the time.

And maybe I was, given who I was and what I knew.

I don't particularly want to be 25 again. But I loved being 25.

I loved being a performer. I loved the excitement of building a marriage and discovering what adulthood might look like. I loved the woman I was becoming, even when I didn't fully understand her.

There are things about that version of me that I miss, and there are things about the woman I am today that I wouldn't give up for anything.

Both can be true.

What if this year is simply a good year to be alive?

There's another message we hear all the time: "Make this your best year yet!"

It's a lovely sentiment, but I've never understood why every year needs to outperform the last one.

Some years are full of adventures. Others are about building something that takes time. Some bring enormous happiness, while others ask more of us than we thought we could give.

And sometimes the very best part of a year is something we couldn't possibly have planned.

I don't need 50 to be better than 40. I don't need my next career accomplishment to eclipse everything I've done before. And I certainly don't need to look at my younger self as someone who was simply waiting to become the woman I am today.

She was already living a life worth celebrating.

So am I.

I'm excited about turning 50.

I really am.

There are things I want to learn, places I want to visit, people I want to spend more time with, and ideas that haven't even occurred to me yet.

I'm excited to continue teaching yoga, developing my own practice, and seeing where this online community goes. I'm excited about the possibilities that come with having almost five decades of experience behind me.

But I'm not putting any pressure on my 50s to become the greatest decade of my life.

I want to enjoy them for what they are.

Because when I look back, I don't think I'll care which decade won.

I'll remember the people, the adventures, the laughter, the ordinary afternoons that somehow became wonderful memories, and the moments when I felt completely happy to be exactly where I was.

And I'd hate to spend so much time anticipating the best years of my life that I missed the ones I was already living.

Maybe the best years aren't behind us or ahead of us. Maybe we're allowed to have wonderful years all along the way.