When I turned 50 earlier this year, I told anyone who listened that it meant nothing to me. I was too grown-up and sensible to make a fuss out of a birthday. And I was too rational and measured to see it as a moment to take stock in any self-indulgent way. I wanted to be seen as a man who was still energised and driven – too focused on the horizon to waste time on anything as cringeworthy as a ‘life audit’.
But I was in a good mood at the time. My book had just recently been published to favourable reviews, my kids were doing well at school, my wife and I were getting on great, and my bank account was looking OK-ish. At times like that, it’s easy to think of yourself as a breezy, freewheeling optimist who never needs to slow his life down with dreary introspection.
Trouble is, nobody stays breezy and freewheeling forever. In between states of chilled contentment, there are usually a few days of numb indifference, at least a fortnight’s worth of anxiety and maybe 24 hours of sheer misery. It’s not ideal, but that’s life, I suppose. No one ever said being human was easy.
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In one of my lower moments, a few months after my 50th, I decided I needed an independent and brutally honest appraisal of where I had got to in my life. Was I a success or a failure? Happy or sad? Fatter or thinner than I should be? Rich or poor? How was I doing in comparison to other blokes my age?
I had fallen into a shameful and childish mindset, one I had spent years in therapy trying to dispel: the idea of life as a contest that was there to be won or lost. It’s an idea that is instilled in most of us – especially men – when we are kids in the playground, where sports provide us with a simple (but deeply flawed) template for making sense of the human experience.
