Turning 40: Thoughts about Mortality

I've had quite a few reactions when I tell people I just turned 40. Many assume that I see it as a bad thing and offer some words of encouragement without prompting. "Oh it's just another day" or "It's just a number" or "40 is so young!" What no one wants to say is that turning 40 is like cresting the hill of life. The uphill battle of leaving your childhood to be an adult is now being replaced by the downward coast to old age (if we're lucky) and, inevitably, death.

The difference between me and most people is that I didn't just begin having thoughts about mortality (mine and other people's) around my 40th birthday. I've not really stopped thinking about it since I lost my friend Dave in a car accident at 17. It was that day that I learned that life truly can end abruptly, without warning, and without the time to say goodbye.

Don't be mistaken, however. I don't fear my death. If I live with any fear at the moment, it's leaving this planet before I get a chance to do a few things on my bucket list. What I've been thinking about recently are the smaller things...

• Will I regret not holding Jesse's hand in public? When I'm lying there in my own private world, the people whom I spared discomfort by not doing so will mean nothing to me.
• Will I regret working too much?
• Will I regret going to school?
• Will I regret the many hours I've spent playing World of Warcraft?
• Will I regret not making more time for friends and family?
• Not losing weight? Not taking my medication as regularly as I should have?
• Not reading more?
• Sleeping too much? Or perhaps not enough?

In other words, will I regret all the moments I squandered, taking for granted that more of them would be coming?

These are the things that weigh heavy on my mind these days. It isn't the fear of dying. It's the fear of dying before I get to make some of the right decisions in my life and 40 just brings to my attention that I'd better get started. It prompts questions such as:

• Do I spend enough time doing the things I love - both alone and with the people I love?
• Do I pursue money at the expense of happiness with the misguided thought that it's what is keeping happiness away from me?
• Do I hold onto and overvalue material things?
• Do I place too much value on getting my degree vs. the process of getting educated?

There is a blurry line in some of these questions, however. I don't think it's being materialistic when you value something that brings you great joy. People often accused me of being materialistic when I owned my Corvette, yet what they didn't know (or couldn't believe) was that the Corvette provided me a driving experience that brought great joy (and often excitement) to my transportation. My vette was a driving experience, the Camry is just a car - a mode of transportation. I don't think I've ever taken it for a recreational drive just to drive like I used to do with the Corvette. I digress. I seem to do that more these days.

Life is a race. A race against time. A race where you trade time for money and money for time trying to find the right balance between the two so you can end up at "your day" with the satisfaction that you said what you wanted to say, did what you wanted to do, and were who you wanted to be before you got there.

So it may be time to let go of home ownership for a while. It may be time to let go of school and the idea of getting a degree. It may be time to set realistic career goals and turn a more serious eye towards my retirement income before I end up with lots of time and no money.

It isn't turning 40 that triggers these thoughts. It's watching life come and go for the inhabitants of this planet every day. Bus accidents, earthquakes, tsunamis, war. The victims of these things did not wake up that day knowing that it was their last. I wonder what they would have done differently that day if they'd known. What about the week prior? The decade? The reality is, we could be in our last decade, week, or day right now. Maybe it's time we all lived like it. What better way to be without regrets at the end?