Youth is wasted on the young, but…
Shortly after Heidi and I were married (or just before - I don’t quite remember), we went to visit my step grandparents in Southern California. They lived in one of the tightly-conglomerated suburbs of Los Angeles, minutes from Disneyland, and treated us to a day in the park complete with a romantic dinner at the Blue Bayou, which looks out on the iconic Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It was a great day, and we spent something like 10 or 12 hours exploring and experiencing all we could.
When we returned, exhausted, but in good spirits my step grandfather looked at us and wistfully mused “Ah, youth.” I think that’s what he said. In my mind I often conflate it with a related and more biting aphorism, “Youth is wasted on the young”. I don’t think it’s what he said, but my memory has perhaps embellished in the intervening decades.
The message was clear though - enjoy it while you still got it. It won’t be here forever, and you’ll actually be surprised by how quickly it goes. And he was right.
Youth is wasted on the young. If we knew how precious that youthful vitality was we would have behaved much differently.
From many talks with clients I have discerned another aphorism that I would like you to contemplate. It’s similar, but flips the old adage on its head.
“Wisdom is wasted on the old.”
I feel like it’s the same saying in reverse, and in a way that is comforting for those of us transitioning from youth to wisdom.
I notice this theme in many of the conversations I have - they look back on their life with its various spheres of work, family, community, species. They think about civic engagement. Art and literature. Sanctity and meaning. Economics, politics, religion. The stuff life is made of. And they realize they have a mature perspective on it.
People have been telling me lately that I have a way of bringing history to life. I think history is the most mystical of disciplines. It’s the study of the manner by which the vast expanse of moments that were once the present becomes the past, the narratives we spin, and the patterns we see. It’s really the whole thing, isn’t it? Because the present is perpetually becoming the past, and 100% of the meaning we make, as far as I can tell, is spinning those narratives and discerning those patterns in order to optimize our use of the moments yet to come. I think that’s what wisdom is.
And of course you would need some experience with history in order to know what this process is like, which happens only AFTER we spend a significant portion of our lives without this awareness. Hence, wisdom is wasted on the old.
And we try to impart it to our children, but they don’t understand it.
In high school and college I remember time happily spent with some great history teachers. They really told great stories and got me thinking. But I’ve come to see that the study of history, like youth, is wasted on the young.
Fortunately, wisdom is its own reward, and that’s the saving grace in all this.
Want to explore your mature perspective so you can spend your life taking only the most meaningful actions? Let's talk.