It feels wrong to write about my birthday when I honestly feel I had one of the best presents of my life with my recent trip to Europe, but the reality is, it is my birthday on Sunday and I’ll be 52 whether I like it or not.
And while there’s a bunch of things I don’t like about ageing, the older I get the more I realise it’s your attitude towards it.
Fortunately I have always been blessed with a big dollop of immaturity.
I’ve had people tell me it’s a weakness, but it’s served me pretty well.
It makes sure I don’t get too lost in the seriousness of life.
It helps me love and chase the daft.
It reminds me people are a bundle of emotions, regardless how hard they try to hide it.
But as I’ve got older, another trait has started to reveal itself.
Impatience.
I realised it when I was in a conversation with the wonderful Lee Hill recently.
He asked if I was becoming more patient in my older years and I told him it was the opposite.
I am not prepared to spend my time on things I think are a waste of my time.
Now I get how arrogant that sounds.
I also get that just because I don’t think something is important, doesn’t means someone else does. And that’s cool.
It’s just I’m not able to invest my time in it.
I appreciate there’s implications with that – from work to relationships – but I’m good with that.
The irony is I’ll do any amount of menial tasks if it’s in the quest to take leaps rather than move inches. I’ll work the longest hours if it creates the conditions for change rather than complicity. And I’ll jump through any amount of annoying process hoops if fights for craft and creativity rather than the contrived and confusing.
But age is refusing me to do any of that if it hasn’t got those goals attached.
It’s not being a diva. Or a prick.
Life’s too short for any of us to be doing that stuff.
As I said, I get it’s important to someone … but I can’t help but feel for all the supposed focus on efficiency and effectiveness that the industry is obsessed with, so much of what we do ends up being about looking busy rather than making a real difference.
Or as I wrote a while back …
The whole industry is engaged in creating different forms of remuneration landfill.
Imagine how much impact we would have economically, creatively and culturally if we were evaluated on what we changed rather than what we produced?
On what we encouraged rather than what we controlled.
What we learned rather than optimised.
And that’s why I have come to the realisation that while ageing may have many problems, impatience isn’t one of them.
In fact, it may be the thing that makes the back half of life, at least as exciting as the front.
So happy 52nd to me on Sunday.