A few years ago, a friend sent me a daily devotional featuring an excerpt from a book called “The Circle Maker” by pastor Mark Batterson. He makes an insightful observation about aging that stopped me in my tracks.
“Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency presents a grave danger. At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. Instead of going after our dreams, we stop circling Jericho.”
I love Batterson’s perspective. It resonates so strongly with me as I enter my early sixties partly because I’m beginning to see how tempting it can be to “live by logic” as we age. It is deeply ingrained, I believe, through cultural conditioning, generational strongholds, and plain old lazy thinking.
Andy Stanley once said:
When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.
How true! When people in your life start reminiscing about the “good ol’ days,” like the opening theme song from the 70’s sitcom “All in the Family,” it’s time to stop and get perspective.
Have you ever noticed that, as some people age, they get more pessimistic, pointing out what’s wrong with the world, why the future looks so dim, and how tough it will be for our grandchildren?
While I completely agree there’s plenty to be concerned about in the world today, I can’t help but think that our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents said pretty much the same thing as they aged. Yet in some cases, like the depths of the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the start of World War II. Imagine a family of Polish Jews at the start of the 1939 Nazi invasion—how much darker could it get? They had every right to never want to repeat the past.
Yet, despite all our current problems, we live in the most amazing period in human history, with comforts, freedoms, and opportunities to inject meaning and purpose into our lives—regardless of our age—that our ancestors couldn’t even imagine.
I think of the example of college basketball legend John Wooden who, after retiring from his coaching career, wrote a number of books on life and leadership. What’s amazing to me is that Coach Wooden, who passed away in 2010 just four months shy of his 100th birthday, wrote his two best-selling books between his late eighties and early nineties.
Right up to his final breath, John Wooden lived out of his imagination. May that be true for all of us!
So keep dreaming, don’t be afraid to engage with life, try new things, take risks, and put yourself out there—no matter your age.
What about you? Do you agree with Mark Batterson’s observations about living in the past? What implications does this have for you as you consider getting older? What about your dreams? Do they excite and inspire you? Leave me a comment—I’d like to know what you think.
Upon turning 50, I started reaming again. The brevity that I’m preparing for the second act of my life made realize just how short life seems. What do I still want to do? Where do I still want to go?
And what is yet to be discovered?
May we always keep that childlike curiosity and desire for adventure.
Well said, Cindy. Those are great questions to ask yourself. When you consider the influence you will have on others, your best years are in front of you, not behind you!
Bill
Bill Jr, Great show today. I can relate to all of what you said. I have been doing a morning 45 min workout for nearly 50 yrs now! When I had a ‘real job’, all automotive manufacturing engineering, while on business trips, many of the guys made fun of me working out. I didn’t care, had my mat and right there in the hotel room I’d exercise. Now I get up 5:30-6am and down in the basement I go for a ‘feel good’ experience to start the day. Before covid I shuttled cars for Marsh along with Bob Wheeler for 10 yrs. While the guys were having breakfast I figured they would be about 45 min, so I’d walk a trail for 22 min and get back in time to resume driving.
My wife didn’t want me driving when covid was around so I hooked up with a local builder as part time on demand. Knowing one must keep busy the wife lets me do this as long as all is taken care of around our home. So I paint walls and trim in new additions, help on deck jobs, small flat stone and brick jobs, build custom cabinets and tomorrow I’m scheduled to tear out a complete bathroom scheduled for a remodel. I also trim my own trees and shrubs and cut the grass. I do have some ‘spare time’ so I like to wood carve mostly birds, animals and some custom jobs. My wife and I also walk 2 miles per day.
It’s so important to keep one’s mental and physical properties busy. I’ll be 82 this December.
Love our comments, Fred. Wow, at 82, you are more active than most 35 year-olds. Keep up the great work!
Bill
>LOVE your comments on your driving experiences. For those guys, stopping for breakfast was the highlight of the day! I’m sure they thought you were crazy…I wish more people your age had your approach to life–Medicare would never be bankrupt!
Great post Bill. Boy did I need to see this. It is spot on. Keep on dreaming or we just fade away.
Wonderful post Bill. Here’s another appropriate quote: “Don’t look back. you’re not going that way.”
Think of life in stages and — “Tours of Duty” — exploratory, opportunistic, and appreciative avenues for learning and adapting to the world, yet responding with layers of principle and wisdom earned over the decades. As for imagination versus memory as sources of insight and inspiration, I have two notable 80+ friends who are as amazing with inspiration as they get, and it is clearly a choice they make —to consider by both faith and logic — what’s next?
Thank Bill — a Good Prompt for the Living.
LIFE IS HOW YOU THINK IT. I THINK ITS GOOD SO I SEE GOOD OR YOU THINK LIFE IS BAD SO YOU SEE BAD.
I think recently looking to my last kid graduating when I turn 50 and at that same time my wife and I will have been together for 27 years, I realized that we had around another 27 years together to go into a new phase of our life together. It reminded me that even in my marriage there is so much more time of dreaming to be done. We can reminisce about what we have done, but we still have so much more time to dream together that living in the past wastes the time and opportunities of an equal amount of time we still have to live and dream new memories.
Great thoughts on your blog!