Beyond 50
WHAT’S the best thing about being beyond 50? It’s not necessarily knowing more. Rather, it’s knowing better. What we know today, we’ve mostly known all our lives. The difference is that today, we’ve actually lived through what we were told could happen if we took the right or wrong turns in life.
No more room for hearsay. No more room for hypothesis either. We’ve made good choices as well as bad ones. And we’ve lived through their consequences. With age, comes the loss of innocence and the wisdom of experience.
What’s the best thing about being 50 and beyond? It’s knowing fact from fiction. It’s knowing what’s love and what’s not. It’s knowing fake from real. It’s knowing what will last and what will eventually fail.
It’s knowing what is true and what is a lie but letting others get away with what they believe to be real, anyway. Because they need to make their own choices and live their own lives.
For me, the best thing about being 50 and beyond is not acquiring greater knowledge, it’s acquiring some measure of wisdom.
Beyond 50, we will be loved for who we are and not how we look because the reality is that beyond fifty, the mirror is not kind to us, most mornings. When cosmetics start to fail us, our character has no choice but to shine through.
The wonderful thing about aging is that we finally acquire the authenticity that seemed elusive to us in our youth when we were beautifully wrapped in a cocoon of superficiality. Now, stripped of our young and beautiful faces and bodies, our souls bravely lie bare for all to see.
For me, the best thing about being beyond 50 is acquiring the ability to look at life from a different perspective.
Life will invariably deal us a bad card. It’s a given. But we will prevail—as we always have. Because now we know that it’s the better choice—to forge on instead of to give up. Pain can enfeeble but it can also empower. We can choose to be forever broken. But we can also choose to heal and be whole again.
We can triumph over the odds. We can conquer our demons. We can forgive and forget. We can allow pain to change us for the worse or for the better.
Beyond fifty, we learn to live better. We learn to be happy—for ourselves, as well as for others. We learn to let go—of the small stuff—what ails us, what annoys us, what hurts us, what irks us. Because now, it’s more important to acquire the capacity to enjoy life, live well, be happy, no matter what.
The best thing beyond 50? We are grateful—for the life we have. And what remains of it. We are not wasteful. We cherish each moment of our lives—to do something useful, interesting, meaningful. We are thankful for every human being who has crossed our path and made our lives unforgettable.
I belong to a group of women, bravely sailing through many storms in life. We are not miserable. In fact, most times, we can say our lives our happy. We dine out. We laugh. We travel. We count ourselves fortunate. But our lives are far from Facebook perfect. And while we post our happy moments, like everyone else, we have our heartbreaks and disappointments.
The best thing beyond 50? We know we are greater than the sum of all our heartaches because we are still here—alive, healthy, happy and well, despite everything that never came to be. Beyond 50, we finally know how to live.