“When I was 18, I thought my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in just three years.”
That quote is attributed to Mark Twain. I remember chuckling at it when I was a young adult. Many of our parents got even smarter as we became 30, 40, and beyond.
Life presents us with intriguing and profound trade-offs. We make choices. Some work. Others are disasters. Some people learn from their blunders. Others don’t. Their stories are not mine to tell. This post is not about the expensive wisdom that they gained. It is about mental maturity which often settles upon us with passing decades.
Tradeoffs
“What will you give up… to try to get what you want?” The first time my wife asked that question, I was startled and unhappy. That was several years ago.
Life is about tradeoffs and consequences. Many wise women understand the truth ahead of their husbands. My wife and I are not the only ones to discover that truth.
The Midlife Crisis
Before I was 40 a seasoned soul gave a talk in a rustic cabin to mellow, unshaven males who were hoping we could make our lives amount to something. Walt was lean, fit, stout of intellect, and quick of wit. He wasn’t yet 55.
He illustrated the midlife crisis with two lines on the graph of our lives. The line representing responsibility is zero when we’re born. As we age, responsibility increases, and the line goes up. The line representing capacity starts out high, but as we age, our capacity goes down.
In young adulthood, some of us think that we are bulletproof and will last forever. After 50 we know that we can’t do as much, for as long, or as strong as when we were at our peak. Walt explained that when the two lines cross, that’s midlife and it can be a severe crisis.
Some men walk away from lifelong commitments to the values that they had hoped to be remembered for. Instead, they chase what might have been easy or appealing in their youth. Other guys stick with their values despite life’s inevitable changes. Walt challenged us to choose wisely.
His talk was profound and scary. I had years to ponder it before I reached that crossroad. Walt’s message was a great forewarning of my life.
Learning from Others
Roughly a generation ago I began to deliberately and routinely associate with men of character. Most were wiser and more seasoned than I was. Over the decades that band of brothers has warned about and protected me from risks that I did not understand, didn’t take seriously, or underestimated. Because I trusted these guys, I tended to be alert when something they had described crossed my path.
Some of the men disappeared from the fellowship for a while and then reappeared wiser and damaged because of the follies they committed. Other men extolled the joy that can come from sacrifice and the significance that may be possible when selfishness is restrained.
Old Age is Not for Sissies
Now that I’m over 50, the validity of that wisdom is clear. It’s also clear that we have a choice about how alive we will be as we age. Experts call it “healthspan:” maintaining the quality of life as long as possible.
Recently I was leading a slightly older friend to a new place. He followed me in his car. I had already parked in the crowded lot. We were talking on our cell phones as he came through the security gate into the parking lot. He would choose which lane to take. I walked to the center of a lane he could see. I told him which way to look. I said he would see a middle-aged guy energetically waving at him.
He parked and found me. As we shook hands, he laughed at my suggestion that I was only middle-aged. Evidently, he doesn’t know many people over 100.
This weekend my “to-do” list was its normal length. I did a training ride for next weekend’s 62-mile bike ride, then puttered in the yard for an hour and killed some home-office clutter.
Oops! I fell asleep shortly after dinner. Only about 60% of my to-do list was done.
For five years I’ve been steadily starving my ambition and chasing essentialism, “fewer but better”. The good news is that I’ve quelled my ambition to what was appropriate five years ago. The bad news is now I am five years older and not capable of what was achievable five years ago.
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Is any of this happening to you? If you’re past 40, how are you dealing with your accumulating decades?
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Terry Moore, CCIM, is the author of Building Legacy Wealth: How to Build Wealth and Live a Life Worth Imitating. Read his “Welcome to My Blog.”