I had a birthday on Monday.

These days I’m really starting to notice just how many more memories I have than my younger friends and colleagues. Can’t help it. I’ve been here longer. I’ve seen more. Listened more. Read more. Done more stuff. Witnessed more. Thought (hopefully) more thoughts, and hopefully learned a bit more too.

Some memories are wonderful and some are painful but all memories are potent in that—as I understand it—how we handle them, obsess over them, ignore them, or rewrite them, ultimately shapes our identity. At least it seems that way to me. I’ll have to ask my psychologist friend Jennifer if I got that one right.

But the one thing I’m pretty sure I have got right about memories, especially as they relate to the whole idea of growing old is this:

It strikes me that being old is not so much about how many memories you’ve collected,
but how much time you spend living in them instead of making new ones.

I’ve come to the realization that my definition of whether someone is old has nothing to do with how much past they have but rather how much life they are living here and now in the present.

And perhaps that’s what surprises most people about getting old. You’d think all those memories of yesterday would build up in an account somewhere like unused vacation days at work, and once in a while you could call in and take today off. But they don’t. No matter how long a life you’ve lived, no matter how long or how diligently you’ve been putting in the time, you still have to show up for life again today, right now. And there’s one very simple reason for that:

Now is all there is. Now is all there has ever been and all there ever will be. Now, this present moment, is the only place where life exists.

Truly old people make the mistake of not being present by slipping off into the past, and by the way, young people make the mistake of not being present by slipping off into the future. We all essentially stop living when we stop being present. And the only time you don’t have much life left is when you’re not experiencing the life that’s right in front of you.

Someone asked me the other day how it feels to now have more of my life behind me than ahead of me. I didn’t know how to answer until I realized it was the wrong question. I don’t now have more of my life behind me than ahead, and when I was younger I didn’t have more of my life ahead than behind. I’ve always only had all of my life right here and right now. My life is here, now. All of it. Memories are useful, but only if they inform and enhance the present.

So I’ll tell you this one thing I’ve learned. No matter what chronological age you are you don’t have your whole life ahead of you or behind you. You have your whole life right here. And what you choose to do right now is what determines whether you are young and foolish, old and out of touch, or present, ageless, and very much alive.

We have this moment. We only have this moment. And if something I’ve just said has brought you back into this moment, happy birthday. We’re glad you decide to show up. Now, let’s use this moment to build ourselves a beautiful life.