FREE NEWSLETTER
Go to main Forum page »
New Year’s Eve is the ultimate reminder that the clock never stops. As we prepare to flip the calendar, it’s natural to look back at the year, and the decades, gone by. We often focus on what we want to change in the future, but rarely do we consider which part of the journey we’d actually like to keep.
Youth has many advantages—health, strength, vigor, and vitality. Everything feels possible, and you’re certain you know what’s right and wrong in the world. Sure, there are downsides: the struggle to forge a career, juggling money problems, and the exasperation with managers who don’t see what you see. But overall, being young is intoxicating.
Being older has its own rewards. You’re typically settled into a career, equipped with the life experience to weather the setbacks that come with being human. Money causes less anxiety, and somewhere along the way, you’ve figured out what actually makes you happy.
Here’s a thought experiment for the final hours of the year. If you could look back through your lifetime and hit pause at any age, freezing yourself there indefinitely—what age would you choose? Why that particular moment?
For me, it would be right now at 58. I have financial stability, a mediocre sprinkling of wisdom, and a high dose of contentment, all while my health still holds up. It took decades of work to reach this equilibrium, and I’m in no rush to move past it.
So, as we head into 2026, what about you? When would you hit pause?
A dear, departed friend often said something along the lines of this: “The good old days are happening right now!”
Not sure I would pause anything. There have been multitudes of really great moments that have created enduring memories, but that’s what they are – – – memories to savor and reflect upon. I’m good with the here-and-now.
It might have been New Year’s Eve, or just a weekend night on the rooftop of a friend’s house. Around 1980. Balmy weather, cool drinks, a small group of like minded souls, a guitar and song book, a clear dark sky that we scanned for satellites and space debris. That’s where I’d pause.
Mid-20s, a public service job I was proud to have, songs and conversation, enough of everything that matters and almost none of life’s complications or troubles that can disrupt or push off happiness and contentment.
Where I lived then, no television, no phones, not much of anything. And yet, among the best times of my life.
Still, these many decades later, and despite plenty of challenges and difficulties and hiccups along the way, I’ve had a wonderful life so far. And my next read is Judith Viorst’s “Making the Best of What’s Left” on the “final fifth” of our lives. I’m excited for what lies ahead.
That’s such a great mental image of life in the 70s and 80’s
I was just thinking the same thing
Do I get to take the knowledge I have now back to the past with me? If yes, I would go back to middle school in a second. If not, I’d just make the same mistakes all over again! I would pick sometime in my twenties. I was healthy, having a good time and my future seemed limitless. Notice the word “seemed”! I had limits, I was just blissfully unaware of them! I often wish it was the 1970’s now, but I’m also aware that some things were better back then and some things are better now.
Only if you own a DeLorean with a flux capacitor.😉
That was an embarrassing part of the movie. I laughed when everyone in the theater was quiet. Magnetic flux is the operating principle of inductors, capacitors store energy in an electric field. The guy that wrote that line must have known that and I thought it was a great joke. One of my businesses dealt with electroacoustics.
Wow, I thought I was the only guy that caught that one!
Just kidding, Langston, even after you explained, I still don’t have a clue.
Mark, thanks for this reflective post.
There sure are some times in my life that I would love to relive, but today, we pretty much have it all. Seven grand-kids, we are all healthy, and have no money concerns. I hope to have many more years, just like the one we just finished. However, with each passing day I am more aware that father time waits for no one, and that we better enjoy this party every chance we get.
Part of me would say “2018.” Doug and I were comfortably retired and were making new friends and starting volunteer activities in our new hometown. We were free to travel anytime, anywhere. 2019 brought the arrival of our beloved grandson and in 2020, Covid and Doug’s death. Grandson and I couldn’t visit his parents until 2023 due to Covid restrictions where they live, a heavy burden for both of us. But in the meantime, he grew and prospered, now attending an excellent university where he’s very happy. My “new” friendships have deepened and I’ve been able to serve several local organizations, including as board chair of one. I’ve been able to travel independently, as I had long hoped to do. Maybe 2026 will be the year that I will want to pause! Like Dennis Friedman and probably some others here, I will celebrate a milestone birthday this year. That will be another opportunity to reflect upon my favorite years.
Thanks Mark.
I’m sort of with Dick on this one – pausing at a particular point just misses too many other important chapters of life.
Your article does get me thinking about certain times in life that I always classify as “really glad that I did it, but you couldn’t pay me enough money to do it again”. They were fantastic experiences for a certain time and place, but would now be just exhausting and overwhelming.
If I picked a time in the past to pause now knowing what came after that pause, I can’t think of any time to do that because of what I would miss thereafter.
If I picked Jan 2025 to avoid Connie’s illness we would miss our grandchildren heading off to college and seeing them at their races or last summer on Cape Cod and more.
I’m pretty sure it’s a gamble I would not want to take.
It seems that all these responses, along with my own preference for living in the present moment, reveal something interesting about the contentment we share in our current realities. I have to wonder: is this perspective shared by society at large, or is it primarily those of us in the Humble Dollar community who think this way?
That’s a good question. Thinking back to my retired tax peeps, I would say most of those clients were at least content with their current life. Few of them had the financial means that HD folk seem to have. So I don’t think money is the key. Friends and family relationships trump cash in the bank. Still, ample income probably helps more often than it hurts.