Turning 40 caught me by surprise. New thoughts and feelings came over my
soul. For what they're worth, here are a few.
1. There was
a hill, and you are over it. You
laugh and it sounds morbid, and sure, 40 is a ways from the morgue. But you can sense the change. You feel the decline. Your body will not get much stronger, no matter how you work out. Your skin has begun
to sag. You get tired more easily. You can’t eat two helpings without regretting
it. You have to watch your snacking and
drink more water.
But there are also the less-physical,
harder to quantify changes. Somehow, at
40 I sensed that my days of being a learner, as a defining role in life, had reached an end. This is not to say that
we should not always seek to learn – we should.
But, like Forrest Gump who abruptly turned around and said, “I think I’m
going home now” after running for three years, at 40 you just feel, “This is
it. I've learned a lot. It’s now time for me to give back.”
By 40, you have become a
repository. The 16 years + of schooling,
the dating and relationships, the problems and difficulties on the job, good
and bad choices made, marriage, children – all have accumulated into a mass of feeling,
understanding, and information whose overwhelming need is no longer to take in,
but to give out, give back, and pass on to someone, the regrets and failures
and joys that have come at such cost.
You have an almost physical need to get these things out, that you have
learned, in 40 years. And this is a part
of dying: to no longer take life from others, but to give it back, so that they
will be able to live.
2.
You’re less
relevant. At 40, you begin to sink
into the background. No-one really
congratulates you on your birthday, or remarks how young you are. If they do, it’s half-hearted, a polite lie
to make you feel better. No-one comes to
your party. Your Facebook
friends start to look old. And to the
younger generation, you are old. Sure,
you can cinch your belt and tighten the years like nothing has happened
and hey, what’s the difference between 41 and 35, right? But there is.
There is. And
instead of being the one who is believed in, whose future is a bright shining
star that people encourage and work to see arise, you find yourself in the part
of the seating area that cheers the risings. This background role is not a bad
thing. But it’s a shift. It’s a part of gracefully letting go of our
hold on the world.
3. Life gains
momentum. At 20, I
thought I was 40. I had a few years of
college under my belt, and the world was my oyster. At 30, reality set in. I hadn't accomplished as much as I had wanted
to in my 20s, and felt disillusioned and disappointed. But physically at least I was stronger than
ever, and still had many dreams that awaited fulfillment.
A decade later, I have a wife and
five children, am a year into my life career, and survived a tough 10 years of low income, mental illness, and lack of steady employment. Having endured two difficult decades, this
next one does not seem so long. And
after that it’s 50, and then…
4.
So, and this
is the last point, I think that at 40, you start to live with a sense of
urgency. You have seen life and how
it goes by, and how once it’s gone, no-one knows or cares about those moments
so laden with significance and meaning for you.
You realize that things like using your talents, giving back to others,
finding meaningful work and doing it well, and good relationships with friends
and family, matter so much more than accumulation of money and societal
respect. This leads you to live more intentionally, hoping to maximize what time
you have left. You do things
like post on blogs again.
