I’m still in my twenties … just barely. It’s a complex time to be in your twenties – heck, it’s a complex time and age, period, probably far more complex if you’re still a baby, even more so if you’ve yet to be born. As Louis Armstrong put it, “I hear babies cry, I watch them grow – they’ll learn much more, than I’ll never know.”
But no matter our age, we humans can’t help but think about our
age, its obsessions and its cares, the drive for youth and beauty against
stodginess, the loss of brain cells, the gain of wisdom (if we happen to be so lucky) and experience.
For that reason, I’d like to share a couple thoughts on the
benefits of age and experience – mostly from others, not my own:
Consider the 162 illuminating answers to this question on
Quora:
Thomas Watson, Sr. was a convicted
criminal facing federal prison for monopolistic fraud and blackmail, with his
firstborn on the way, at the age of 40. No visible path to
success, had just been fired from his 17-year job, just married for a couple
months, but with the unwavering belief that he would do "something
big" with life, and that he should plan his family's fortunes decades and even a
century into the future.
This is 1914, right at the start of World War I. Watson turns down a number of job offers, looking for that one where he can control the business for himself, and earn a share of the profits -- and that's where CTR - eventually to become IBM - comes in. Four hundred demoralized salesmen, with an annual revenue of less than $5M ... up to $897M and 72,500 employees at the time of his death in 1956.
This is 1914, right at the start of World War I. Watson turns down a number of job offers, looking for that one where he can control the business for himself, and earn a share of the profits -- and that's where CTR - eventually to become IBM - comes in. Four hundred demoralized salesmen, with an annual revenue of less than $5M ... up to $897M and 72,500 employees at the time of his death in 1956.
The vast majority of successful
startups are founded by entrepreneurs over the age of 35 -- this was true fifty
years ago, and equally true now. The exceptions we hear in the news
actually emphasize the point.
Consider this Stanford Centennial commencement speech, given by John Gardner, who headed the Carnegie Foundation, founded Common Cause and Independent Sector, and led the US Dept of Health, Education and Welfare (heading the launch of Medicare and the CPB – creating NPR and PBS).
particularly this section:
As you settle into your adult lives, you cannot write off the danger of complacency, boredom, growing rigidity, imprisonment by your own comfortable habits and opinions. A famous French writer once said, "There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives." I could without any trouble name a half dozen national figures resident in Washington, D.C., whom you would recognize, and I could tell you roughly the year their clock stopped.
If you are conscious of the danger of going to seed, you can resort to countervailing measures. At any age. You can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, "Be interested." Everyone wants to be interesting, but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep your curiosity, your sense of wonder. Discover new things. Care. Risk. Reach out.
Learn all your life. Learn from your failures, from your successes. I know that some of you are a little frightened - more than a little - of what's ahead. You know a lot - perhaps too much - about the ways in which lives get messed up. Bright illusions aren't your problem. But someone said, "Life is an error-making and error-correcting process." When you hit a spell of trouble, ask yourself, "What is it trying to teach me?" Sometimes it's confusing but Irene Peter pointed out that today if you're not confused, you're not thinking clearly.
We learn from our jobs, from our friends and families. We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by taking risks, by suffering, by enjoying, by loving, by bearing life's indignities with dignity.
The lessons of maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self- destructive behavior, not to burn up energy in anxiety. You learn to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You find that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You conclude that the world loves talent but pays off on character.
You discover that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling, and then really quite relaxing.
You learn to live along the way. You don't let the nagging pressures of life smother moments of beauty that can never be recaptured. Careless people treat unique moments as throwaways and live to regret it.
Those are hard lessons to learn early in life. As a rule you have to have picked up some mileage and some dents in your fenders before you understand. As Norman Douglas said: "There are some things you can't learn from others. You have to pass through the fire."
You bear with the things you can't change. You come to terms with yourself. As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said: "You never conquer the mountain. You only conquer yourself." You master the arts of mutual dependence, meeting the needs of loved ones and letting yourself need them. You can even be unaffected - a quality that often takes years to acquire. You can achieve the simplicity that lies beyond sophistication.
I suppose every man and woman with the capacity to face reality - which eliminates most of us at once, including your speaker no doubt - recognizes that humans want meaning in their lives. Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Old or young, we're on our last cruise." We want it to mean something.
Consider this Stanford Centennial commencement speech, given by John Gardner, who headed the Carnegie Foundation, founded Common Cause and Independent Sector, and led the US Dept of Health, Education and Welfare (heading the launch of Medicare and the CPB – creating NPR and PBS).
particularly this section:
As you settle into your adult lives, you cannot write off the danger of complacency, boredom, growing rigidity, imprisonment by your own comfortable habits and opinions. A famous French writer once said, "There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives." I could without any trouble name a half dozen national figures resident in Washington, D.C., whom you would recognize, and I could tell you roughly the year their clock stopped.
If you are conscious of the danger of going to seed, you can resort to countervailing measures. At any age. You can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, "Be interested." Everyone wants to be interesting, but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep your curiosity, your sense of wonder. Discover new things. Care. Risk. Reach out.
Learn all your life. Learn from your failures, from your successes. I know that some of you are a little frightened - more than a little - of what's ahead. You know a lot - perhaps too much - about the ways in which lives get messed up. Bright illusions aren't your problem. But someone said, "Life is an error-making and error-correcting process." When you hit a spell of trouble, ask yourself, "What is it trying to teach me?" Sometimes it's confusing but Irene Peter pointed out that today if you're not confused, you're not thinking clearly.
We learn from our jobs, from our friends and families. We learn by accepting the commitments of life, by playing the roles that life hands us (not necessarily the roles we would have chosen). We learn by taking risks, by suffering, by enjoying, by loving, by bearing life's indignities with dignity.
The lessons of maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self- destructive behavior, not to burn up energy in anxiety. You learn to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You find that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You conclude that the world loves talent but pays off on character.
You discover that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you, a lesson that is at first troubling, and then really quite relaxing.
You learn to live along the way. You don't let the nagging pressures of life smother moments of beauty that can never be recaptured. Careless people treat unique moments as throwaways and live to regret it.
Those are hard lessons to learn early in life. As a rule you have to have picked up some mileage and some dents in your fenders before you understand. As Norman Douglas said: "There are some things you can't learn from others. You have to pass through the fire."
You bear with the things you can't change. You come to terms with yourself. As Jim Whitaker, who climbed Mount Everest, said: "You never conquer the mountain. You only conquer yourself." You master the arts of mutual dependence, meeting the needs of loved ones and letting yourself need them. You can even be unaffected - a quality that often takes years to acquire. You can achieve the simplicity that lies beyond sophistication.
I suppose every man and woman with the capacity to face reality - which eliminates most of us at once, including your speaker no doubt - recognizes that humans want meaning in their lives. Robert Louis Stevenson said, "Old or young, we're on our last cruise." We want it to mean something.
Sounds like the greatest & most exciting parts of our
adventures are yet to come, so long as we believe that they are – no matter
what age we physically happen to be. True,
“when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you
and carry you where you do not want to go” – but what happens in body is only
tangentially related to what happens in mind.
See the world through rose-tinted glasses, and you’re bound to be a
happier and more fulfilled person, while inspiring everyone around you toward
joy (and perhaps greatness). Maybe it’ll even lead to world peace.
