Deceleration and diminishing returns
I'm two weeks away from turning 30. If I live to be 90 years old, I'll have lived longer than more than 95% of people born. Even then, I'm going to be optimistic and say that I've got a shot. Why not?
Assuming I do, that puts me approximately at the end of my life's first third... a great first third!
But there's one thought that's been dominating my consciousness recently: that I've started to recede. This is something that everyone who ages inevitably has to confront. Life's first 30 years are your most energetic ones, brimming with optimism, feelings of invincibility, and devoid of consequences.
Every year brings an explosion of new experiences and skills – it's easy to believe that this growth is the status quo, that the upward trajectory will continue forever! This period is truly the human life's springtime.
Sadly, this growth does not last forever. There comes a point where there's just not enough time in the day to keep up with it all. With work, family and other chores, tasks and responsibilities taking a majority of time during the day, you're lucky to have an hour or two of focused time to yourself. Beyond that, growth in anything follows the pattern of diminishing returns, which is something you only learn over time.
Even more than that, it's increasingly challenging to have the mental stamina to approach those few hours of free time a day with rigor and energy, when the rest of the day requires so much attention.
Success doesn't equal happiness
In all honesty, life was easy in that first third. If you're fortunate, your family takes care of you for your first 18 years. If you're extra fortunate like me, your family will take care of you during your college years as well. My parents paid for my entire college education, and it's something I've only grown more grateful for the more I've aged. I was able to graduate debt-free with a good job, and it's enabled me to achieve a lot for my age. Before 30 I was able to get married and become a homeowner – the latter of which I wouldn't have been able to achieve without family support. When I have children, I will do everything I can to pay this gift forward to them.
Unfortunately, your happiness only has a weak correlation with success. Wealth is really measured as a percentage of one's means, which is almost entirely within your control. If you're living outside of your means, even if you pulling in buckets of money, you will certainly feel poor.
One day in my teens, my closest childhood friend told me his father was broke. I almost gagged on the spot! Put off by my reaction, he started to talk about how he spent all his money on his mansion, cars and wine cellar, plus he had his step-sister's private school tuition to pay for, and "did I tell you he's also paying for my cousin's college? He's completely broke."
It sticks with me as one of the most ridiculous things I've personally heard regarding perception of wealth, and it completely ignores the fact that if he so wished, he could cut back on these frivolities. But I also saw how stressed his father was about money; there's no doubt that despite his massive income, he was spending an ungodly amount.
Aside from comparing our income to our outcome, we measure success by comparing it to those around us, which breeds even more unhappiness. In the words of H. L. Mencken, a man is wealthy if he makes $100 more than his wife's sister's husband. The contrapositive is that he's poor if he doesn't... True that! (By the way, Mencken also had this saying, which I love: "When someone says 'it's not about the money', it's definitely about the money")
What I'm trying to say is that despite my own successes, I don't think I feel any happier. I'm sure the fact that I'm writing this will cooped up in our 5th week of Covid-19 related isolation has a bearing on my mental state, but still! I feel like there's less to do, less that I'm hungry to accomplish, and that worries me.
I think I need some way to break away from this plateau, and to ever so slightly start climbing upwards again. I have some ideas, and I'm going to explore them in my new series: Forest Thoughts. More on that in the next post.