Changes

I have always mused. Even as a young child (is that redundant?) I would muse about almost anything I observed. Of course, in those days I called it "pondering" and later in my teens and twenties and thirties, I called it "analyzing." After achieving middle age, I began calling it "musing."

You see, once we attain middle age we begin to realize we cannot do anything about what we observe and, therefore, our mental efforts will be fruitless. I have come to believe that is the point of middle age: we resign ourselves to our fates.

While there are people who have achieved greatness and renown in middle age, it really started much younger. Their gifts were likely recognized much earlier and the gifted were nurtured and mentored. Doors were held open, paths upward smoothed, and futures all but assured.

Of course, that's not how it works today. In the not so distant past, people didn't achieve until they reached middle age. Someone in his twenties or thirties might be an "up and comer" but wouldn't be sitting in the CEO's chair. He (or she) might not have even been a vice-president but perhaps, at best, department head in his/her middle thirties. It took a long time to get anywhere near the "top."

Since the 70's, however, the corporate world has begun to emulate the "Hollywood Celebrity" model. Age is no longer a factor. Youth has become an asset rather than a liability. We have a number of billionaires that dropped out of college and rose to greatness by being in tune with the current generation and taking advantage of it. Well before they hit 35.

It's like a whole generation has become irrelevant. It's like we skipped over that middle generation to bestow the future on the "up and comers" and ignored the "plodders" that were following the previous paradigm.

When I was young, a "boy billionaire" was in his forties or fifties. Wealth of that measure was rarely achieved until one was quite gray and wrinkled.