Wasn’t it a rude awakening when the Super Bowl offered its most recent halftime show with love and respect and its usual fun flair, to the older crowd as it has been doing for a while now? Just when you think you have finally figured something out about life, while still young enough to enjoy it; and you tune into the big moment at halftime and, “OMG IT’S US!”. Our beloved 80s was 40 years ago!!

It is like one day it all suddenly hits. You look up and realize you have reached or passed middle age! When on earth did THAT happen?!

Age, like wisdom, creeps up on us slowly and usually bit by bit. We are not born with either one. Nor do we have some success at something in our 20s and 30s and BOOM, we are now 35 years old, feeling seasoned, old and wise. Not to take away in the least, the knowledge, accomplishments, and talents of the younger generation! I am one who appreciates their contributions so very much!

However, I will save my use of the word “wisdom” for those who have spent enough time on this planet learning, tripping, failing, loving, surviving, developing and overcoming. The time, events, and growth of all that combined, does indeed take decades to percolate. It only tends to start from the point of time when one leaves the parents’ home and ventures out into adulthood and independence. For some that starting point is 17 or 18 and for others, well into their 20s. Give it another 30 years beyond that.

I am NOT dismissing the younger generation at all! You are on the journey, and I hope it will be an incredible eye opening and also joyful journey for you. Just please understand that you have yet to know many things, the least of which is how it feels to look in the mirror one day and wonder who that face belongs to, that is staring back at you. The shape of it is changing, a wrinkle or two is deepening and changing your expression, the melanin fading, your jawline starting to alter, etc. It’s a sobering moment in a society that is fixated on the surface, on one’s looks, especially women as a means to love, happiness and success!

After enough decades surviving and hopefully thriving on this earth you have also watched, participated in and lived through many of life’s repeating patterns, whether it’s politics or fashion, slang, new math, or the arrogance of youth’s certainty that you are the problem, and they alone are the answer; these continually repeating experiences after a several decades of time, bring with them a patience and a wisdom as we live through them again and again until finally we can predict and laugh.

But then comes the inevitable Super Bowl Halftime show as a shout out to us “older folks”. Wait what?! That alone finds us now scratching our heads and saying, “Whoa, wait a darn minute here! What’s happening?!”

But here is the bright side, we have tried and failed, or lived our lives for someone else, or we have succeeded wildly, or we have raised our children and we now have a free and open space in our lives to toss the pressures of most things aside and say, “What’s next? Who am I now? What would I like to do with all this knowledge and experience in the time I have left? I want MORE! But what exactly is “MORE” for me?” With kids gone or perhaps single again, we may now have more choices!

I don’t know about you, but I would rather learn anything from someone who failed enough times before finally figuring things out and having their success. So if you are someone who wants more but doesn’t know what they could possibly have to offer at the later stages of life, consider this; you have overcome something, you have left something as unfinished business, you have ideas you never had the time to pursue, you have unused knowledge, you have longings left from as far back as childhood, you have strengths, talents, compassion, and who knows what else! NOW is the time to dig that out and fly with it!

Don’t let the youth-oriented movement to succeed by the ripe old age of 19 or 20, or the under 30 millionaire club, get to you. You have great value at 50, 60, 70! Stop acting like your life is over and you are now old with one foot in the grave just because the kids are going places and achieving things and you are being told by society that it is THEIR time, as if you no longer matter! They live in a different world. For you, just go be YOU and do something you didn’t have time or the belief in yourself to do before!

Keep in mind that Colonel Sanders failed before he succeeded. He lost everything late in life and began KFC well into his senior years! He restarted something from nothing but his knowledge, that secret recipe!

Remember this, you can’t take your millions, your car, your purses and shoes, your beautiful homes, with you into heaven (or wherever you go after this), but you can leave the legacy of your true value on this planet to encourage the next generation hit by the shockwaves of the Super Bowl Halftime “golden oldies show”!

It’s your turn to thrive as who you are today at any age!