Life begins at 50

By Lionel Wijesiri

Just before 2013 dawned, a friend called to wish me a happy New Year, and as a parting comment he said, “You know something - the countdown of my life will start in a few hours. Tomorrow I’ll be 50”. When I kept silent, he asked me, “It’s just a number, isn’t it?”

We’ve all heard of this eerie term called “mid-life crisis,” where confusion runs riot in your mind, frustration and fear drag you down.

Say you are just fifty. You need hair colour because your hair is grey. You sit regretting that more than three fourth of your life is already over. You stop without feeling that you have many miles to go before you sleep. There is depression in watching your children as they are grown-up. You need money for your daughter’s marriage and son’s higher education.

More is happening to your spouse - your better and other half. You feel she is withering under the onslaught of age. Her dimpled cheek is less prominent before the crinkles in the skin of her face. Like her, you also have a lot of financial, physical and psychological tensions.

How fondly you miss your past, mulling over the sugary bygones... You really miss the days in your twenties, when you had your first crush. About your late twenties, you still have the nostalgia of the first day of your first job and then your mind drifts to your first salary cheque.

All those are gone; you are stepping on to your fifties. You feel as though you are being shifted into oblivion. You are getting tormented with the reports from your medico that your blood sugar is soaring past your anticipation and blood pressure is uncontrollable under stress.

Best years

For many, the age of 50 may be the beginning of the end, but a group of scientists claim that the good life begins only when people reach their fifties. Despite increased risk of disease, it seemed that people in their fifties worry less, ignore the negatives and accentuate the positives, according to scientists at Stony Brook University, New York.

The researchers said that when people reach the landmark age, their stress, anger and worry fade gradually and feelings of happiness start to surge, the Telegraph reported. Dr Arthur Stone, one of the authors of the study, said their findings were striking. “You would think as chronic illness threatens life would get worse, but that is not the case because people don’t focus on the threats,” he said. “They focus on the good things in life like family and friends.”

“Life after 50 can be the best years of your life,” Helen Keller said. “Life at any age is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing.”

What this means is that mid-life isn’t a destination. It’s just the beginning of a second journey. Age is no drawback. You can build the life you really want. But sometimes you have to be prepared to take a leap into the unknown. But surely that’s better than letting go any chance of achieving the life you really wanted.

Ask yourself: How can I fill that empty feeling that’s growing inside me? What should I do next? I have an idea of what I want . . . now how do I get it?

Maybe, you aren’t as fit as you once were. It is silly to feel sorry for yourself. Reaching a landmark like 50, should be the time when you should reflect and re-evaluate your life.

Experience

When I reached 50, I’ve learned so much, I’ve acquired the skills and talents that I began using daily. I decided it was time for me to make the most of who I was, and become the person I wanted to be. Today, after 16 years from that date, I am happy I took the right decision. I am on the entrepreneurial path, building a business with a few partners. I love being an entrepreneur, and the thrill of being in charge of my own destiny is incredible!

After my 50th year, the vocation has become more appealing, more viable and more rewarding. Even today, when I still have so many years ahead of me, I was not the type of person who would just want to accept mediocrity. There was never any way I’d just let myself sit on the sidelines, and not go for being all I could be.

I’ve always been an optimist. When I was 50+ of age, I made a decision to dwell on the grey in my hair or the pouch of extra fat that seems to have taken up permanent residence just below my ribcage. I bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t work the Sunday newspaper crossword without my reading glasses or that my skin was as parched as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But I threw a few highlights in among those grey hairs, bought clothes that fitted my changing shape, and celebrated the fact that I still had the mental acuity to work the crossword puzzle. As for that dry skin, I just rubbed a couple of layers of skin lotion and it worked. Talk about a silver lining!

Honest to goodness, you could not pay me to go back to being 25 or 30 or even 35! I look at my younger generation and do not envy them their trials and tribulations. I would sing platinum-selling American R&B and soul singer- Lyfe Jennings’ popular song: ‘If I knew then what I know now, I’d be different, I would slow down, I would not be running around; As the world spins round and around, wish I knew then what I know now, I did it to myself, blamed nobody else.’ The lyrics make sense to me.

But “to everything there is a season,” and all of the anxiety of college, young adulthood, parenting, career-building, and everything else that goes with finding your way in life are necessary rites of passage. In other words, I’d like to tattoo the serenity prayer (acceptance of what you can’t change, courage to change what you can) on my forehead, or, more to the point, embed the knowledge of it in my heart. But I can’t. I can just be grateful for having done my time, learned my lessons, and found my own way.

It’s really good to be 50 plus. At this stage of life, you know your own mind, you know what you like, and you choose accordingly. You’ll still try new things, of course, but not just because “everybody’s doing it,” because it’s the fashionable activity, or because your significant other thinks it’s important.

Looking ahead

But what about the down side? What about the inevitable slide into old age and infirmity? Well, what about it? In truth, I’m probably more fit today than I was at 25. I don’t agonise over whether to jog for 45 minutes, I just do it. My body and my mind are in fine shape, and I’m not particularly interested in comparing them to anyone else’s, young or old, male or female. I’m just interested in getting out there and using my gifts, whatever they are day-to-day and year-to-year.

So the morale of the story is simple. Reinventing yourself after 50 is an engaging and fascinating journey. Engage in a passionate love affair with every part of your life; embrace, nurture, and develop everything you do. Fall in love with your own future, I guarantee you that’s it’s a fantastic way to live.