I was going to add some rules to this. A laundry list. Add in some of my own secret sauce, now that I have reached the ripe old age of 45. I had a few tips, mostly having to do with walking. I walk a lot. But after I thought about it, I wanted to share one rule I am pretty sure of, even if 45 isn't that old. And see, this rule isn't one weird trick or a protip or even a sage piece of wisdom. This is more of a rule like the law of gravity. This rule is going to follow you and be true no matter what you do. The only question is how you adjust to it.
So are you all buckled up? (Which, btw, is a tip for getting older). So here is the thing:
You will never do enough. You will never go enough places, know enough people, accomplish enough goals, and feel enough emotion to be where you should be. And do you know the real pain? If you did actually do everything you thought or felt you should, you would still feel the same thing. There will always be one more missed opportunity or broken connection or regrettable decision breathing down your neck. People around you will pass away, and a conversation you were planning to have will now be impossible. The world will change, and things you wanted to do won't be possible. Sometimes something will be there still but you can't access it in the same way. That new movie with cultural currency that you've been meaning to see will still be there, but you realize it is ten or twenty years old, and by the time you see it, the times that inspired it will be gone. At odd times, you will realize the world you are walking around in is half-full of shadows and ghosts---people and places and attitudes that you think are part of your environment but you realize have been gone and changed for a while. And then you realize that you might be one of those shadows and ghosts.
And I am not saying this out of despair. I am not saying this because I am living a life of quiet desperation. Over my life, I have done a lot of adventurous things, had real relationships with people, and generally lived a creative life where I was my authentic self. I don't feel this way because I "settled" for a comfortable job and never left my "small town" in Ohio. The other week, I walked for miles down a muddy trail in the Costa Rican rainforest to find the ruins of an ancient church. But when I get home, I still feel the action is somewhere else.
I start doing math in my head. I joined this site when I was 21. 23 years from now I will be in my late 60s. Will I still be here? My first heartbreak was when I was 14. When I am 76, will I still be wondering what would have happened if I had asked her to "go out" with me in slightly different words? When I look at the decades coming up, I wonder how far I am from the last conversation with my parents and family. And then I inevitably reflect that moment back to what I was doing just a few years before. It becomes a game and a torment.
And through it all, I just have to admit that I will never do enough, or say enough, or feel enough. The prize will always be a little out of reach. There will be one meaningful conversation that I will never get to have. There will be a perfect summer kiss on the beach that will leave me giddy and floating that will never happen, and even if it does---it won't be quite the emotion that I think it will be.
I think this is a rule. At least, I haven't met anyone who has escaped these feelings, or at least, no one has ever communicated a state of perfect fulfillment to me. But my question right now is what do I do with this rule. It would be an easy answer to say "acceptance", but it would be a false one. Some days I still wake up at 5 AM and think for a minute I am 25 and then have to remind myself that I am not. Sometimes I feel a panic as I see my life galloping away. But sometimes I do accept it, I meditate and think about what I am doing tomorrow. I feel myself as part of a bigger flow. Or I get something to eat and go for a walk.
I don't know what to say about the response to it, but I can say it is a rule of getting older: you will never have done enough.