Another Reminder of the Ticking Clock
In 1994 I was 30, my dad was 54.
He passed away that Christmas Eve, almost six years after being diagnosed with malignant melanoma and one year after being surprised by a clean bill of health at his five year checkup.
To be honest, 54 still seemed a long ways away from 30.
But when I turned 36, the math got to me.
See, at 36 I was eighteen years past high school graduation, which seemed like yesterday. And eighteen years until I was the same age my dad was when he died.
Fifty-four didn’t seem so old anymore.
Crunching the numbers, I realized that if I lived as long as my dad, the midpoint of my life had been nine years earlier.
I got even more granular than that with the numbers, but you get the picture.
The result was that I went through an entire “midlife live evaluation” (sounds more controlled than “crisis” doesn’t it?) in my thirties.
We often think of our fifties as the time for the midlife crisis and all the good, bad and ugly things which accompany it.
But the truth is, for men anyway, our midlife is mostly in our thirties. Once we’re in our fifties, we’re likely at the 2/3’s mark.
Sometimes I hate math.
But it does help me focus.
