Photo by Tatiana P on Unsplash

3 Skills to Help Men Age Gracefully.

What if instead of trying to regain youth we embraced our years?

I’m at a weird point in my life.

All my life I’ve read personal-development and self-help and philosophy books. Some were pushed on me by my parents to (I can still remember the smell of the Norman Vincent Peale paperback), and others I found on my own quest to understand the life I was in.

Some were amazingly helpful, like Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain by Chungliang Al Huang, which introduced me to Taoism and started a love of tai-ji dance and calligraphy. Some authors were like rites of passage for cis white males in the U.S., like Ayn Rand or Tim Ferriss (the test is whether you can see past the bullshit, and unfortunately, brothers, we’re not doing too well). Some I think literally saved my life; Charlotte Joko Beck’s Zen, Love and Work kept me from losing my mind during my military service.

Now that I’m approaching my mid-50’s though, I’ve realized something very disconcerting.

I have more life experience than the people I learned from.

I’m not saying that I’m smarter than any of those authors and teachers.