I recently had another birthday.
They come around much faster than they used to. Around the same time, I read a line from Carl Jung* that unsettled me, challenged me, and strangely gave me comfort.
He wrote that the things we desire when we are young can become unhealthy when we are old. If a 65-year-old holds on to the same goals that were normal at 25, something has gone wrong.
Learning Across a Lifetime
This rings true. I don’t remember hearing it when I was young. Either it was said and I didn’t notice, or it wasn’t said much at all. Jung, writing decades before I was born, recognized that goals and tasks shift through the stages of life. When we cling to the ambitions of youth, we often create unnecessary strain later on.
I have seen this in parents who try to relive their teenage years through their children. Dreams they left unfinished become projects forced onto the next generation. I had to face this myself. My children’s interests and abilities were very different from mine, and I had to release the pressure to make them pursue what I had wanted.
Rethinking Desire
As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed how often my focus drifts toward things I can buy. Leading up to my birthday, my first thought was where to shop or where to eat.
Reading Arthur Brooks’ From Strength to Strength forced me to reconsider that pattern. Shopping delivers a quick rush, but it is not a healthy one. I have started to watch myself more closely. The harder part is finding what to put in its place.
For me, the answer is to give more attention to family and to others. This season is best spent training, teaching, and mentoring.
When Old Goals Remain
I see people my age who still carry the same goals they had in their twenties. It doesn’t fit. It’s as if time has moved forward for their bodies but not for their ambitions.
This doesn’t mean resigning ourselves to decline. It means recognizing what belongs to today rather than clinging to yesterday. I still run, though not as far or as fast as before. That is enough.
A Biblical Reminder
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13: 11–12:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Growth means putting aside what no longer belongs to us, so that we can take hold of what does. This is for His honor and our health.
*Jung’s words remind us that what once served us can become a burden if we refuse to grow. Letting go of old goals isn’t a loss; it’s the only way to step into the joy and purpose of the season we’re in now.
“As a rule, the life of a young person is characterized by a general expansion and a striving towards concrete ends… But the life of an older person is characterized by a contraction of forces, by the affirmation of what has been achieved, and by the curtailment of further growth. His neurosis comes mainly from his clinging to a youthful attitude which is now out of season.” (Jung, The Stages of Life, 1929)