50 (a 2-part essay)
PART 2: On Being 50
(Part 1: On Becoming 50)

i've long held this approach to aging where i liken it to a formal education, which if done right, aging rightfully is, no?

in your twenties, you're like a freshman in high school. scared and intimidated but when with other freshmen, cock-sure, loud, and certain about your take on the world.

your thirties represent your sophomore year of life. here you have a sense for the game having completed your freshman run. your work carries greater significance but you still largely play a subordinate role with lots of more experienced folks to lean on.

in your forties, your junior year, you've seen enough that the more ambitious and capable can start taking on leadership roles should they choose. if you hang back, then you know your game well enough to steer clear of any unwanted attention or trouble.

your fifties represent your senior year and per my high school model should be THE BEST stretch of them all. you're old enough to have a proper sense for all parts of the game. you're young enough to still have a good amount of health and vigor so by my math it is life's sweet spot, and i'm banking on it being spectacular.

now, sure, i have many friends who grouse about their ailing and in some cases, failing bodies. i can't deny that your body does not have the flexibility or restorative abilities or stamina it did when twenty-five. but the good, great and grand news is your mind is the high-performer now. an adolescent mind is like a puppy that hasn't been potty-trained yet. lots of energy and ideas but every now and again it's going to lay a turd on the rug. i'm beyond giddy to no longer be dropping the occasional public deuce, as i sure had my share of them back in my puppy years. and of course this is all relative and a sliding scale. but no matter how early or late you develop or reach the various milestones, you are obviously going to mature and advance over time. it's nearly impossible not to.

so, to recap. when you turn fifty, your body is not what it once was. here we agree. but neither is your mind. any slip and slide you've seen in your physical performance will have been countered exponentially so, by your mind's abilities. you may argue the point that your mind has seen slippage too, but i would retort by saying you can't fathom how dumb you were thirty years ago. you have been part of so many experiences and observations and failures and second-chances and advice, both welcome and unsolicited, that you are a walking encyclopedia of the life experience. you may think you were this smart when you were twenty but i live one hundred yards from one of the finest universities in the world and, well, let's just say, none of us are at our mental peaks at twenty, i promise.

as i once heard, good decisions come from experience and experience comes from bad decisions. so another boon of being fifty is you hopefully have the lion-share of those bad decisions behind you and you can lever all of that curated experience into a series of excellent decisions that will pave the way to a stellar decade--your best decade. this is surely my intention at least.