Axios Finish Line: Lessons from the gray area
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images
I'm turning 60 this year, and this milestone has me thinking about the value of aging beyond economic power or trendy hair. It's perspective.
The big picture: Like a lot of older Gen Xers, I have stories of buying an annual road atlas, talking for hours on a corded phone in the kitchen and witnessing the first Macintosh appear in my college computer lab.
- I remember looking at that "mouse thing" and feeling quite sure it would never catch on.
Between the lines: I've been wrong about so many things. And if 60 has taught me anything, it's that being wrong isn't the worst thing. Refusing to learn is.
Here's some advice from someone who has more gray hair than answers — a few things I wish I'd known when I was younger.
Write it down. You think you'll remember everything, but you won't. You'll remember the big things, mostly. But the small things — the funny thing your kid said, the long days at the pool — those have a way of slipping away.
Your friends — your support system — are everything. In a family emergency, they were the ones who organized meals, picked up my daughter from college and showed up when I couldn't ask.
Make the connection. In my 30s, a retired couple lived across the street from us. They were the neighbors who went out of their way to do kind things, like installing a tree swing in their yard for the neighborhood kids to use.
- Then life got busy. We rushed through school years, work deadlines, practices, dinners, all of it. Somewhere along the way, I lost that connection, and I will always regret that.
The bottom line: Maybe graying means you've lived long enough to be wrong about a few things — and lucky enough to keep learning.
