Thoughts on Turning 40

Forty. In purely statistical terms, I'm now about halfway done. This is a big deal to some people. Me, I don't care much one way or the other about my age – today feels a lot like yesterday and, I'm guessing, not unlike tomorrow – but it does set the mind to wandering.

Have I really now spent more of my life out of school than in it?

How come I still remember my phone number in kindergarten but couldn't tell you more than a tiny handful of my friends' numbers today?

What's the next Internet, cell phone, or in-car cupholder, lurking in the wings now ready to change the world over the next 4 decades?

Other thoughts and questions are more pragmatic.

What's with the hair?
I haven't lost much on my head. That's a good thing, or so I'm told. Over the last few years, though, things have changed a bit. My head is not my only follicular concern. My shoulders are getting furrier. The hair on my ankles is disappearing – I fear I'm just a few years away from a glaringly obvious sock line. Then there's the nose and the eyebrows. It's nothing catastropic. I just don't like the way the trendlines are pointing.

And, let's discuss gray hairs for a sentence of two. Where do they come from? It seems that nobody has ever seen a gray shoot emerging from the scalp; they seem to appear fully-formed, as long as all the other hairs around them yet somehow twice as wiry. Oh well.

How old do I look?
Phil Mickelson just won the Masters. For years I've assumed that guy was way older than me. He certainly doesn't seem like a young man. And now I learn that he and I were born two months apart. Egads!

It's not just Phil, either. At least once a month I see an article or TV interview featuring somebody with salt and pepper hair, a little extra weight, wrinkles and bags where signs of youth used to be. Every time, I think, how old is this person? And far too often these days the answer is, younger than me, my friend. Younger than me.

This may just explain why waiters, bartenders, shopkeepers and lost young tourists looking for directions have started to call me "sir" a lot.

Too late to retire young
The idealized retirement you see in TV ads does not appeal to me. It may work for others, but too much golf makes me twitch and I don't want to wear a blazer on a sailboat. Nope. That said, I'd love to work on my own terms. Do what I like when I like. Lose interest without guilt. Make money for fun. And travel the world.

Alas, it has become abundantly clear that none of this is going to happen by age 40 unless, you, dear reader, would like to send me a massive check right now.

No regrets, no complaints. Just the blunt reality that retiring young did not happen. Gotta keep making the doughnuts.

Bye-Bye Olympic Fantasy
Barring the unexpected discovery of untapped aptitude at curling, shooting, or archery, the Olympics are officially out of the question now. You could try to tell me otherwise and maybe I could find some shabby little country in need of a last-place finisher. Realistically, though, it's over. I just have to live with that.

And, Brett Favre and Chris Chelios notwithstanding, it's time to accept that the NFL and NHL aren't going to happen either. NBA, MLS, MLB – they're all goners.

Not that I was ever close to any of these, mind you. The difference is that it's officially time to hang up the dream. If I try really hard, I might be able to convince myself that it wasn't all my fault. The opportunities never presented themselves.

The 10,000 Hour Rule
Speaking of failing to excel, have you read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers? I haven't. I've been told one of his core theses is that to be great at something you have to do it for 10,000 hours. It's the magic number.

Without bothering to do the math, I'm going to guess there are many, many things I've done that much by now. My "genius moment" has not yet arrived in any of them. For example, I've played a hell of a lot of soccer and haven't yet detected even the slightest trace of Beckhamesque skills in myself.

The cold reality is that I have not achieved genius levels at skiing, speaking, running, calculating tips, or using the Microsoft Office suite. On the flip side, I'm really getting the hang of breathing, walking, sleeping, and chewing. Keep hope alive!

There's no stopping the future
If I am, in fact, halfway down the slide of life, so what? The past is gone and tomorrow's coming whether I'm ready or not. The earth will keep spinning, clocks will keep ticking (albeit silently in this digital world), and headlines and headliners will come and go. Forty or not, we all have to keep plugging along.

So plug I will, with a big fat smile on my face.

I wonder if I have any polyps.