Age is just a number, they say.
They are wrong. Age is a perspective.
I recently marked my 40th birthday. The life expectancy for a man in the United States has is 76 years. The median age around here is 32. This number, this 40, could be a somber number reminding me that I’m on the downward slope of life.
I don’t choose to look at it that way, though. I choose to think about how much my perspective has changed in the previous decades.
Our first few decades were decidedly selfish. We spend our first 10 years learning the basics, like how to eat, walk and function at a low level in society. We spend the second 10 years, those teen years, solving the angst-filled riddle of who we are.
I spent my 20s purely focused on myself. More or less, I did what I pleased, when I pleased because I could. Fortunately, what pleased me was never harsh enough to require jail time.
My 30s saw a decided shift. While I spent those first three decades focused on me, I’m no longer the main player in my life. I started focusing on others, namely my wife and children. I got more involved in my community. I got more involved in my church.
What I found was that by serving others, I derived more joy than I ever did in those first selfish 30 years.
It’s admittedly an anti-American rant, to say you should spend more time and effort on others than yourself. We’re living in a “me” culture, full of selfishness and selfies. It’s fashionable to say you’re going to spend more time working on yourself. It’s heresy to say it’s OK to worry more about others than yourself.
That’s the wisdom I’ve learned in my first 40 years, though. You might find momentary happiness from things and activities, but pure joy is built from helping those around you.
I don’t know what perspective my next decade on Earth will bring. I’ve only had a few days to ponder it. I suspect it will be a decade of “no” for me, though, which might sound quite contradictory to what I’ve learned so far.
In the past 10 years, I’ve spread myself too thin. Even when I’m helping people around me, I’m not helping as fully as I should. I need to be more committed to the things I’m doing. My word should mean not just that I’ll do what I say, but it should mean I’ll do it with all my ability.
Life doesn’t reward you for attendance; it rewards you for participation.
Age does bring you a certain freedom to be yourself and to like who you’ve become. You stop bending yourself to fit in with a group and instead find your own group. If it doesn’t exist, you form it.
We aren’t sure what challenges are ahead in the next 10 years. We’re not certain what the next 10 minutes might bring. I suspect something will happen that defines who I’ll be, much like each of the past decades had its transformative moments.
And that’s OK. Whether it’s the wisdom of age or just the proper perspective, I know whatever happens will be for the best.
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