In a couple of weeks I'll be 40. It's one of those daunting birthday thresholds that tends to shake people up. There are cards, sayings, pop culture references, and plenty of examples of individuals in your life you can point to who delineate their lives around this age. I'm sure plenty of people have truly considered and measured whether this is significant for them or not, and they have their reasons, but I'm not so worried about it. In fact, I'm passively looking a few years beyond it. Maybe 43? Maybe 45? Dare I say, 48? It all feels counterintuitive, however, so let me lay out where my head is at. I think you'll find it's a pretty simple progression in logic.
To start, it's important to recall that I'm a glutton for self improvement, and haven't been slowing down that trend in recent years. In fact, it's been greatly accelerating. I'm making improvements for my mental and physical health regularly, and they come with an abundance of positive reinforcements. Am I perfect at them? No, of course not. In most cases in this regard I'm still laughably bad at them. Truth be told, you'd be forgiven if you held the belief that I haven't seen the inside of a gym since elementary school, or that I have the emotional intelligence of someone who has never left his house. Because each of these things were true less than 10 years ago. Depending on how I choose to define my growth in these spaces, hell, you could say they were true going back as little as 3 years ago.
This anticipation of reaching and surpassing the 40-year mark isn't just a chronological milestone; it's an opportunity to reflect on years of persistent effort and gradual transformation that have defined my journey. It underscores a belief I hold dear: true growth, the kind that reshapes our very essence, unfolds over years.
I'm sure you've got several observable areas of growth in your life that this maps to easily and directly. They may not feel quite so large, but consider your growth in some of the universally impactful things of life, your work, your emotions, and your sense of self. Fret not if you don't have anything that stands out (it most certainly will in time); I'll use some of my own to demonstrate what I mean.
I'm a Senior Software Developer. I've been one of these for a little less than a year (although it was largely company policies that caused the delay, and depending on who you ask I should've been one anywhere from 1 to 2 years ago). It was my first promotion to a new level in this career space, having been hired into a regular old developer role out of my internship in 2020. But before that I had effectively zero experience in writing software beyond what I cobbled together while doing my other jobs. It's clear this worked, but on a scale of time it's been less than 10% of my life focusing on this career, and dare I say, I'm doing quite well with it. So how many years until I became a successful software developer? Let's call it 3. (My 4 year anniversary is March 16th.)
Before starting my job at Shopify I worked in a wildly toxic environment as a warehouse supervisor for a small company in Trenton, ON. I'd been there roughly two years when I was promoted to the position, taking the job away from the person who hired me. Unfortunately for me they didn't fire him, which is why the role became so toxic, leading to my inevitable emotional breakdown and swift departure. The subsequent months are a mess of deep depression, wrestled free by the might of my family who literally came to my door and wouldn't leave until I'd established some plan for recovery. I began seeing a therapist regularly and started untangling the mess of mental health I'd allowed myself to weave for the decade prior. That was almost 9 years ago. Less than 25% of my life, and throughout large parts of that time only passively engaged in therapy, working on sharpening the tools I'd been shown and others that I picked up along the way through my own processes of discovery. I would say I'm at a comfortable state with my mental health, and others might observe me and believe the same. But there's still plenty of growth I can undergo. Largely, my success with my mental health improvements has been aided by having an emotionally intelligent partner that has shared plenty of good and a handful of bad times with me since then.
My partner and I have been together since 2016. We clicked quickly and because everything felt so right for each of us (and still does), we had little hesitation about getting serious as quickly as we did. Within a matter of months I had moved in, and we were well into the realm of making big statements like “I love you”, and “I'll be with you forever” (maybe not this platitude exactly, but one just like it). It's been my most rewarding journey and opportunity for growth to date. Each day shows me the opportunity to learn and grow as an individual, partner, and participant in a family. Once more, less than 25% of my life has been spent in this situation, although in this case I've earmarked the remaining 100%. I'll never be able to adequately answer the question of “how many years?” until this started feeling like something I was good at; partly because it always felt easy, and partly because I know it's something that is never done.
I challenge you to take a moment and reflect on some similar pieces in your life experiences over the last few years and beyond. Where and what have you considered yourself deficient in at one point or another and now find it hard to believe that you have come as far as you have; or that others look at you as an expert in, not knowing work you put into it. You certainly have examples for yourself that fit this mold. Where might you succeed at growth in your next years? The growth we're most in awe of comes at a macro scale. It's iterative and compounds in its growth, but it's there.
Reflecting on the profound growth in career, mental health, and love over the past decade, I'm reminded that the most transformative changes require time. Looking towards the years ahead and the potential they hold, I'm not fearful, but rather choose to embrace the slow, relentless march of time as the true architect of growth. How many years should you let pass? The question isn't just about time's passage but about how we engage with each moment, each year -- fully aware that growth is a journey best measured by the enthusiastic accumulation of experiences.
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