I remember when my dad turned forty. The very idea of forty sent my dad into a mild depression. Some call it a mid-life crisis. Forty seemed so “old” to him. Now I find myself at fifty, which some say is the new forty, taking inventory of the past and musing about the future.
I read somewhere that most people’s biggest financial growth years takes place in their fifties. I like that thought. It seems it takes most of your life just to figure out how things work. Many of the greatest accomplishments of highly successful people takes place after fifty. In China, there is mandatory retirement from government jobs at fifty. Many of them start their own businesses at fifty. Seems it would be a great place for a seniors ministry.
If life experience means anything, and I believe it does, you have more wisdom at fifty and beyond compared with your young adult years. Wisdom comes two ways. One is by learning from older people with life experiences and wisdom. You can learn from their mistakes and pain, sparing yourself from the same mistakes. Sadly, like most other folks, I didn’t do that. That’s the easy way to learn wisdom. The other way, is to live life, make mistakes, and learn from our own life experiences. That’s the school of hard knocks, or the hard way to learn wisdom. I have my bumps and I wear them like war medals. Paul the apostle said that the only thing he boasted about was his sufferings. We talk (or boast) about our past war stories and what we learned, the young yawn, and life goes on.
Have you ever tried to convince a 20 year old that you know what you’re talking about? The problem is, they don’t know what they don’t know. So they talk about what they don’t know in a very knowledgeable way, and we grin in amusement. My take on the whole learning process is this – Pre-teens don’t know anything and they know it. (Maybe that’s why Jesus loves children so much.) Teenagers think they know something. Young adults in their twenties are convinced they know something. People in their thirties come to a realization that they don’t know anything. In their forties they set out to learn all they can. And when they reach fifty, they know enough to operate in the real world, make things happen, get things done, understand relationships, and generally start doing some things that really matter.
The landmark of fifty doesn’t bother me. The way I see things, I’m just getting started. So, look out world, here I come.
