I can't find the story from the book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, but it was similar to some of the stories in that random article that google just fed me.
Thanks for posting. It's something that concerns me as I head into my 40's, so it's really nice to read anecdotes from folks showing there are opportunities for those getting up there in age.
As someone who is mid-50's, everything turned around at 40. Health, physique (was at the gym 4 days a week), job (quit a loathed job and found one I liked), relationship (got a well-needed divorce). I feel like I wasted my 20's being anxious and my 30's being married to someone I didn't love.
One of the most helpful things that I've done in my life has been to make sets of friends who are different ages than I am.
It helps me understand that although there are certain states of life people tend towards, aging isn't as harsh for everyone.
When I was 25, I thought that people who were 50 were ancient. But I play with a blues band and the drummer is 73 and still gets under houses to do plumbing.
My friends in their 80s who are still working are often slow... we all become geriatric at some point if we live long enough.
But I've also met people in their 50s who are really, really old. And I mostly date women in their 40s, and one of the most interesting things has been how old some people in their 40s are and how young some people in their 50s are.
A second thing that has helped me is that I keep playing with new stuff, just for fun. I keep taking up new instruments (I've been spending a lot of time playing banjo and piano, but this year I built a modular synthesizer and have been enjoying that way of making noise quite a bit). I keep learning new technical skills and because of the business I am in I can have my boss sell projects that allow me to practice the ones I think will be more profitable. And all that has taught me how much we can actually learn if we're just spending a 20-30 minutes a day on a specific practice, over the course of years.
So, I just turned 40 a couple of months ago, I sent my kid off to list first day as a high school senior. And I've got enough time to do about 3 more careers in my life. I've been a university professor, a semi-professional musician, and right now I'm a pretty good programmer and all-around IT worker.
Knowing all those people older than me, I'm able to see how much longer I might be here. I stopped drinking, got down to a very healthy weight, took up exercises that are fun (a lot of yoga, mountain biking, and hiking). I've gotten a lot picker about how I have romantic relationships. I travel more to visit my friends who have their kids tying them to a locale.
And knowing how much progress we can make by constant, slow study has made me super excited about learning general things. I read a lot of philosophy and history, but I also do a lot of playing with technology.
I started learning math again, because I feel like that will be important for understanding the various kinds of statistics I'll have to do to work with statistical tools like machine learning. CRUD apps have paid my bills for a long time, but I don't know how much longer I'll get a thrill out of building them.
So that's what I do. I'm not worried about making it big as a musician or a programmer because I like the process and I can get enough remuneration from it to keep everything going as long as I feel like living.
And I suspect that I am actually a lot quicker witted, can pay attention longer, and have a better memory now that I occasionally fast, am not drinking every day. I suspect that a lot of my friends in their 40s aren't "slower", they just have kids and are dealing with it by drinking, like I did in my 20s. And I do know that we age, but I also know that how we age isn't the same for everyone... with good luck, we have a whole lot of time to learn and play with interesting ideas.
I would recommend reading 30 lessons for living : tried and true advice from the wisest Americans by Karl Pillemer:
> After a chance encounter with an extraordinary ninety-year-old woman, renowned gerontologist Karl Pillemer began to wonder what older people know about life that the rest of us don't.
> His quest led him to interview more than one thousand Americans over the age of sixty-five to seek their counsel on all the big issues- children, marriage, money, career, aging. Their moving stories and uncompromisingly honest answers often surprised him. And he found that he consistently heard advice that pointed to these thirty lessons for living. Here he weaves their personal recollections of difficulties overcome and lives well lived into a timeless book filled with the hard-won advice these older Americans wish someone had given them when they were young.
"At this age, I’m becoming aware of just how long and short 40 years is. Literally everything that has ever happened to me can fit into 40 years. If I do another 40, twice as much can happen in total."
One of the interesting things about aging is the realization how short life is. When I started considering the frame of mind that I had less life to live, than I had already lived, it made it easier to focus on the important stuff. I too was fortunate to find someone at a young age who was compatible with my quirks. And while many folks I have met eschew the notion of marriage and even family, I find that without my wife and kids I have a hard time contextualizing what, if anything, I've contributed in exchange for the raw materials I've consumed. That was not something I expected to feel when I started out.
So, I'm starting to read this and I'm thinking he's making some good points. My inner monologue goes "Maybe 35 isn't too late to reassess and turn things around?" Then I read:
"I’d have nagging thoughts such as these: ‘Oh god, I’m 25 and I haven’t..."
As someone reaching 40 myself, it's funny the author doesn't realize they are just getting older. Not all, but most people, as they age, start to lose that wanderlust that they had in their youth. Like the author I have been on many adventures and across many countries, and I will still do a lot more of it. But as I get older I feel the pull far less than I did when I was younger.
I can't find the story from the book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, but it was similar to some of the stories in that random article that google just fed me.
Age is just a number.
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