Those were the words on a t-shirt my oldest brother wore the day he turned 30. I still have the shirt, and in fact wore it on my own thirtieth birthday 10 years ago. If I were to wear it again, I suppose I would need to update it.
I would be lying if I said that I didn't at all ponder the ramifications of turning 40. I don't mean the physical things, which thus far have been mostly inconsequential. Yes, the ratio of gray to brown hair increases by the day. And, yes, my knees rebel if I try to run two days in a row. What I mean is more of an intellectual awareness that time is fleeting. Such an awareness is not new to me because even as a child I had it. I can remember getting up out of bed one night around age 5 and crying at the top of the stairs, having somehow come to the awareness that everyone in my family would one day die. It's like the Flaming Lips song, Do You Realize?. "Do you realize / that everyone you know some day will die?" (If only I had reached for my crayons and put thoughts to paper!)
The difference now is that a substantial chunk of my life has passed. I'm not a 20-year-old aware of a mortality that still seems infinitely far away. I'm 40. The horizon has drawn closer. (Wow! This is taking on a much more morbid tone than I had intended!) Simply put, I don't want to waste a minute. That's why I quit my job. That's why I take my studies so (probably too) seriously. I've been at Princeton for six months and I'm already thinking about graduating and applying what I've learned, whether it be in Paramus, Pyongyang, or Palookaville.
I would be lying if I said that I didn't at all ponder the ramifications of turning 40. I don't mean the physical things, which thus far have been mostly inconsequential. Yes, the ratio of gray to brown hair increases by the day. And, yes, my knees rebel if I try to run two days in a row. What I mean is more of an intellectual awareness that time is fleeting. Such an awareness is not new to me because even as a child I had it. I can remember getting up out of bed one night around age 5 and crying at the top of the stairs, having somehow come to the awareness that everyone in my family would one day die. It's like the Flaming Lips song, Do You Realize?. "Do you realize / that everyone you know some day will die?" (If only I had reached for my crayons and put thoughts to paper!)
The difference now is that a substantial chunk of my life has passed. I'm not a 20-year-old aware of a mortality that still seems infinitely far away. I'm 40. The horizon has drawn closer. (Wow! This is taking on a much more morbid tone than I had intended!) Simply put, I don't want to waste a minute. That's why I quit my job. That's why I take my studies so (probably too) seriously. I've been at Princeton for six months and I'm already thinking about graduating and applying what I've learned, whether it be in Paramus, Pyongyang, or Palookaville.
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