New Rule of Aging: Have More Firsts Than Lasts

One of the strange things about getting older is becoming aware that some things are happening for the last time.

You don't always know it when it's happening. That's the thing about a last. It usually doesn't announce itself.

You pick up a child who has become too big to carry, not realizing you'll never do it again. You walk out of a house you've lived in for years,
assuming there will be another ordinary Tuesday there. You leave a job, say goodbye to someone, close the door on a particular chapter of
your life and only later realize it was the last time.

For a while, I found this unsettling. There is something about getting older that makes you more aware of the edges of things.
You begin to understand that time isn't an unlimited subscription and that some of the things you once assumed would always be there simply won't be.

But I've decided I don't want to spend the rest of my life keeping track of the lasts.
I'd rather keep track of the firsts.

My first solo dinner. My first time sitting at a bar alone. My first time wandering into a place simply because it looked interesting.
My first time going somewhere without knowing exactly what I was going to do when I got there. My first time saying yes to something
my old, responsible self would have dismissed as unnecessary.

There are still an astonishing number of things I've never done.

I've never been to every city I'd like to see. I haven't met all the people I'm going to meet. There are restaurants I haven't discovered,
books I haven't read, neighborhoods I haven't wandered, classes I haven't taken and experiences I haven't even thought to put on a list.

That's what I find so exhilarating about getting older. The list of things I've done is long, but the list of things I haven't done is still wide open.

And I think that's worth paying attention to.

We spend a lot of time talking about aging as a process of subtraction.
We lose youth. We lose certain abilities. We lose people.
Our lives change in ways we didn't necessarily choose.

But there is another way to look at it.

Getting older also gives you an opportunity to become less interested in what you're supposed to know, how you're supposed to behave
and whether you're doing things the “right” way. You can become more willing to try something simply because you're curious.

You don't have to be good at it. You don't have to impress anyone. You don't even have to stick with it.

You can just have a first.

And there is something wonderfully energizing about doing something you've never done before.
It wakes you up. It gives you a story. It reminds you that you're still capable of surprising yourself.

So I'm trying not to spend too much time worrying about what I'm doing for the last time.
Instead, I'm looking for the next first.

Maybe that's one of the secrets of aging well. Don't spend all your time standing at the edge of the life you've already lived, counting what has disappeared.
Turn around.
There is still a lot of life you've never tried.