For Wilshire Baptist Church
“I spent my 30s fixing the mistakes I made in my 20s, and my 40s doing what I should have done in my 30s.”
It was a throwaway line for laughs by Steve Harvey on a rerun of Family Feud, but I found it oddly profound and intensely realistic. Who among us is doing exactly what we thought we’d be doing? Who is playing catch-up on their hopes and dreams?
I look at my own life and my 20s were spent launching my career and marriage, 30s reshaping my career as opportunities ended or changed, most of my 40s on a sort of autopilot followed by an all-out battle to pull life out of a dive. My 50s have been a time of gentle recovery and rejuvenation.
I can’t say I’ve been living a decade behind like Harvey, but nothing has been what I expected either. That’s mostly OK because I’m not sure I ever had well-defined expectations. I didn’t graduate from high school or college with a list of goals and then set out to achieve them, and that might have been a mistake. Instead, I’ve mostly followed a predictable path that has provided opportunities and setbacks, and how I’ve dealt with those has defined the direction for the next leg of the journey.
Today I like where I am and mostly like who I am, although I still wish I were two inches taller and less of an introvert. And I wish I’d started writing what I wanted to write two decades ago, but I couldn’t because I hadn’t lived yet and didn’t have anything to say.
After hearing Steve Harvey’s comment, I’ve read that he has become an outspoken Christian. I didn’t know that. Some say his message is of the “prosperity” type and that may be. He seems to have caught up with where he wants to be at age 60, and it’s good if he’s giving God the credit.
My own experience is that if you work with what God gives you – what you want and even what you don’t want – and if you do it honestly and with a spirit of gratitude, things can work out in a way that is entirely wonderful and that has nothing to do with fortune or fame.