This month I turn 65. At this milestone, I’d like to share five beliefs I now hold. Let me add: This is not, I hope, my “Last Lecture.” Those decisions are well above my pay grade. So, join me in looking in life’s rear-view mirror with poet Pablo Neruda as our navigator: “Hay que andar tanto por el mundo para constatar ciertas cosas” (“We have to walk a long way in the world to know the truth of certain things.”) First off, the trifecta of accepting, embracing and acting.

Belief No. 1: Accept your age. About four years ago I was sick, as in white tunnel to the afterlife sick. Two weeks over the holidays were lost to me. I finally saw a physician who told me, not unkindly: “Mr. Maslanka, you don’t realize how sick you were. Listen to me, you are not 40 years old anymore” Point taken. (Full disclosure: Perhaps advice not fully followed but fully believed.) Gravity wins, I promise. But you must not merely accept your age, you must actively embrace it. Otherwise advancing age is, well, the waste of a golden opportunity. An opportunity to reflect, to learn and to teach.

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