I wish I did, but I didn’t

When I was a sophomore in college, I sat down one evening and I made a list of all the things I wanted to do in my life and my career. I literally made a list. And I’ve done most of them.
For the last few decades, I’ve made a living showing other people how they can have lives and careers that have meaning and fulfillment, and how they can check off the things on their bucket lists that they never thought possible. I’ve checked off many of mine. But I keep getting new ones.

As the Frank Sinatra song goes, “I’m in the autumn of my years.” That’s bull and I’m kidding myself. I’m in the winter of my years. That’s not a bad thing. The problem is that I have become painfully aware of time. I don’t know how much more I have. Neither do you. Neither do any of us.
My biggest fear when I was a young man was that I would end up an old man walking along the beach and saying, “I wish I had done this, and I wish I had done that.” Thank God, I can’t say that. There’s not much I haven’t done that I set out to do.

To call upon Sinatra again, “regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.” For the most part, it’s all been pretty good. But there is so much left I want to do. I’m discovering new things about myself that are opening up new possibilities. All of the sudden I have become funny. All of the sudden, I can write poetry. All of the sudden, after taking really, really bad snapshots all my life, I have developed a photographer’s eye. I am good enough to get my pictures published.

I have plans to set up a new non-profit company whose goal is to bring folk music of the ‘60s and ‘70s to a new audience of young people. I have reached out to some big-name folkies from days past, and they are interested. One of them is 83 and is still playing at small venues. I am nowhere near that age, but I do see obits for guys in their 60s when I pick up the Sunday paper. If I am going to be a folk impresario, I need to start soon before it’s too late … for the singers, or for me.
For those of you in the autumn of your years, your 40s and 50s, you can have a great future if you want it. I have found the “winter of my years” to be an amazing time of growth. During this period of my life, I have taken the reins and revitalized a bar association as its Executive Director. I have moved into public service and run the consumer advocacy program for a non-profit contract agency working for the Attorney General.

I am working on a book. I go out and do speeches on consumer rights and take pride in my new-found ability to educate, inform and entertain an audience, something I never thought I could do. This is all “second chapter” stuff, things I have been doing when I am supposed to be past my prime.

I am really nothing special. I’m not like some of my clients who were cum laude Harvard undergrads and Harvard Law School Law Review Editors. Like most of you, I am just a guy. But I can’t say about my life, “I wish I did, but I didn’t.” Can you?

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