A New Journey

I have reached middle age and am reflecting upon my life thus far, and it occurred to me that there are a lot of similarities between me as a fifty-year old and me as a twenty-year old. Both want to figure out who they are based on the circumstances and experiences, and the particular perspective, of their lives. When you are twenty, the whole world lay before you, the choices and possibilities seem endless, and you are certain you can change the world. You know just enough to be hopeful … even certain … that the world can be a better place for everyone, and you can help make it happen.

When you are seeking identity as a twenty-year old, you are looking at the future, at potentialities, at what you can become. You head down the road without a glance in the rear-view mirror. When you are fifty, you are looking as much at the past, at reality, at what you have become, as you are looking at the road ahead. Hence the proverbial mid-life crisis, when far too many of us men spend a great deal of time trying to recapture our youth (staring in the rear-view mirror) and doing stuff, ofttimes stupid but sometimes healthy, to remake ourselves.

At fifty you pretty much look in the mirror and have to say, “This is it.” The big advantage over being twenty, however, is that you can look back on far more choices, good and bad, and far more experiences, both favorable and unfavorable, and reflect upon them with a different kind of perspective. One can look back and discern pivotal moments in life, realizing how small those moments seemed at the time but how many important lessons they imparted to us.

Like when I was fourteen years old and my buddy Norm Wantland taught me how to ride motorcycles on a Honda CB160. Norm, though only fifteen years old himself, was quite a patient teacher. But in spite of his thorough and well thought out teaching methods, like any beginning rider, I dumped his bike in the street while trying to make a u-turn. And like any normal rider, Norm left me lying in the street while he picked up the bike and cleaned it off.

So my first riding lesson actually involved two lessons: the technical aspects of operating a motorcycle and the emotional aspects of a rider for his ride.