Midlife crisis is that time when you realize that
your children and your clothes are about the same age.

BILL TAMMEUS

The years run too short and the days too fast.
The things you lean on are things that don’t last.

AL STEWART, “TIME PASSAGES”

The thing about reaching middle age is that if you have any brains left at all, you start to realize you’re running out of time. Time to do things you vowed you’d do back when you were twenty-four. And so, one Saturday, you find yourself behind a sixteen thousand-horsepower ski boat being steered by a former high school friend named Attila, hanging on to a towrope, trying to avoid fishing boats and beads of water that smack you in the eyes like buckshot.

“What in the world am I doing?” you’re screaming, and Attila thinks you want him to speed up.

Every few weeks I get together with five other middle-aged guys for something we call the Circle of Six. It’s an eating group, really, though we founded it with grander plans. The group has been growing (pun intended) for a dozen years now, thanks to some incredible cheesecake of our own making, and as we hit the middle years, I noticed that some of us are engaging in activities we wouldn’t have dreamed of back when we still had our minds.

For instance, one of the guys (I won’t name names, but I will tell you that Ron Nickel receives this guy’s credit card statements) bought a high-powered motorcycle, then sold it when he came within a whisker of crashing. Another took up hang gliding and limped to our meeting a few weeks ago, holding his lower back and making sounds somewhat akin to those of an overworked mule. (Again, I wouldn’t dream of telling you his name, but for the sake of this book, we’ll call him Vance Neudorf.)

We got to sitting around the fire, the six of us, talking of things we intended to do when we were younger but haven’t because we’ve been held back by time. Or our loving wives. Or our insurance agents.

“I’d like to cycle across the country,” said one of us. Everyone nodded.

“Garden with my wife,” said another. Everyone gasped.

One even confessed that he’d like to learn the ukulele and give concerts. I won’t tell you who it was, but everyone laughed.

Then came stories of parents who had grand plans for an adventuresome retirement, who salted away money for travel only to discover that they’d run out of health once they got there; they’d run out of time.

As I watch my parents age in the suite next door, I am reminded of time’s rapid passage. I guess we spend our early years wishing time would hurry up, our middle years trying to find more of it, and our latter years wondering where in the world it went. We get so busy with the blur of schedules and the stuff of earth that we neglect the celebration of today.

Time is one versatile guy. He flies. He heals all wounds. Time can be wasted. Time will tell. Time marches on. Time runs out. Everywhere in the Western world are reminders of time. We have clocks on our wrists and our cell phones, our stereos and dashboards, our street signs and buildings. We dangle clocks around our necks, in our pockets, and in every room of the house. One day archaeologists will dig up our stuff and say, “Hey, they must have worshiped these things. Stand back, this one’s still ticking.”

I’m told that the average seventy-year-old has spent twenty years working and twenty-three years sound asleep. He has spent seven years eating and drinking, six years in a car, four years sick, two years dressing himself, and about twenty-nine days slathering on mosquito repellent.

Some people are very organized when it comes to time. They write down lists of things they will do with their day. That way, they don’t have to spend time remembering things; they can spend their time looking for the paper they wrote the list on.

To avoid the avalanche of time, middle-agers:

   buy juicers

   yogacize

   nip

   tuck

   wear spandex

   medicate

   diet

   visit 4.5 million “antiaging” Web sites

   try another diet, one that “really works”

During midlife, we are constantly trying to make up for lost time. We rush about as if we’re going to find it somewhere, hoping all the while that time is on our side. We get so stressed out we start drinking Maalox like it’s gravy. We wonder, What would it be like to slow down? And if we slow down, will we have a nervous breakdown? Materialism and speed have doused the fire in our souls, and it’s time we went looking for matches.

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” wrote the psalmist in Psalm 90:12. And if we number them, we just may find that we don’t have enough time left for petty stuff like discussing someone else’s failures. Or how the soloist should have tuned up before singing last Sunday. We won’t have time to whine and complain that the previous generation got it wrong and the next generation doesn’t get it at all. We won’t have time for things that are really ugly and disgusting, including much of what’s on tabloids and television. We won’t have time to sit around comparing what can’t be taken to the next world. Things like bank accounts, titles, and achievements.

If we find those matches and reignite that fire in our souls, we will discover that time is precious—that we should spend it brightening someone’s day, helping those less privileged, and loving those who are forgotten. After all, no matter our age, we have less time than we think. Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow is an assumption, and this moment that we say we have…just passed.

A wise friend says, “How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Make a mistake with money and it can be fixed, but time is gone.” In her excellent book Time Peace, my friend Ellen Vaughn reminds us that “in the end, people’s beliefs—their worldview—determine their attitude toward time.”

As a Christian, I believe we are stewards of whatever God gives us, including the days we have left. Because of Christ we are promised the riches of eternity where time will be extinct, but for now we are allowed the riches of today. I’d like to spend my remaining days spreading grace and joy around. As A. W. Tozer wrote, “May the knowledge of Thy eternity not be wasted on me!”

Who knows? I might even sign up for those ukulele lessons after all.