What goals would you be setting for yourself if you knew you could not fail?

Robert Schuller

Remember the last time you got a new toy? You know, the thing that returned you to youthful giddiness…even if just for a while. My Father’s Day gift this year was a pair of serious home audio speakers; big, heavy, boxes that boom like the ones we cranked-up in college to the joy and chagrin of all around us. In this age of mono speakers attached to phones by way of Bluetooth or WiFi, these brand new and completely retro-looking speakers, hard-wired and properly amplified, are a mind-blowing return to the awe and wonder of the highs and lows of full stereo.

Listening to these speakers yesterday afternoon, I was reminded of that Maxell ad in the 80’s that shows a guy sitting in a chair in front of huge speakers, gripping the armrest, with his hair blowing straight back, like the rush of a mighty wind. Though I’m past the days of my hair being blown in any direction, I suspect the huge grin on my face was the emotional equivalent of what that ad conveyed – I was totally blown away. Pandora served-up a great series of songs with Steven Tyler and Aerosmith setting the tempo:

Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
Oh, it went by like dusk to dawn
Isn’t that the way?

Amid the joy of hearing the music in such a crisply refreshing way, the lyrics jumped out of the speakers in striking fashion, taking me into a moment of euphoria-loaded nostalgia. I sat dazed in the feelings of the song, first heard when I wasn’t old enough to really notice, later when it accompanied me down other youthful paths, and on to this moment where it returned like an old friend – our conversation picked up and carried-on like we just spoke yesterday.

Everybody’s got their dues in life to pay, oh, oh, oh
I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody’s sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Recorded in 1973, Steven Tyler knew nothing of the lines that would come across his face and could hardly have imagined how quickly time would pass. This is part of the genius of the song, it is timeless, aging with its singer and the rest of us, connecting us to that past while touching us in the present.

Half my life’s in books’ written pages
Storing facts learned from fools and from sages
You view the earth

I heard many other songs yesterday, but Dream On is still echoing in my mind this morning. Earlier this week, I found myself in a discussion on Arthur Brooks’ book, Strength to Strength, the first half of which explains the reality of the strengths of youth and how they are fading even as we are just starting to notice we have them, and the second half of the book tries to help us see how we can transition to a different kind of strength in the second half of our life. His case studies center on great artists, engineers, athletes, scientists, etc. who accomplished amazing things (mostly by the time they were 30) and then spent the rest of their lives unable to attain, or sustain, the early glory.

The point of the book is good in that he is trying to help the reader redefine the notion of success and reconcile the fading of youthful strengths with the burgeoning of other strengths through time and experience. I laughed earlier in the week as I encouraged a friend to stick with the book, as the first half is pretty depressing, then gets a bit more encouraging.

One fundamental thing I believe Brooks gets wrong in the book is not acknowledging the way our priorities shift with time and maturity, and the ways we choose to invest ourselves amid a naturally occurring evolution in definitions of what entails a “good life.” He quantifies early achievement in terms of great works of art, scientific discoveries, or feats of engineering, concluding that they are not repeatable because the achiever is no longer capable of thinking, creating, or designing at the same level – much like an athlete cannot sustain physical prowess. I wonder, how might interest, intensity, and necessity, play into his conclusions?

Oh, sing with me, this mournful dub
Sing with me, sing for a year
Sing for the laughter, and sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it’s just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Tyler’s creative genius in his lyrics was tapping into something he intuited but was only just beginning to understand. His was an observation on time’s passing, our passing with it, and the sense that the present is really, really, precious. As I watch others in the twilight of career and life, I wonder about Brooks’ conclusions, our cultural notion of aging, the concept of retirement, and what constitutes a good life. Do we accept the fade too soon? Is life really just a challenging journey of lessening capacities ending in the slow limp to the finish line?

In my working life, I see a general lack of big, bold, ideas. Most never aspire to greatness nor attempt the impossible. Few have the audacity to believe they can solve big problems and many exist in the pattern of survival at worst and maintenance at best. For many, the promise of retirement is really an accelerated fade hidden behind the mirage of a “good life” of comfort and leisure. A fade that morphs quickly into an elemental struggle to simply live for as long as possible.

Half of young Steven Tyler’s life was spent learning facts “from fools and from sages.” What would he say now about the pages he’s written in the book of his life? What would we say about our own pages?

Priorities change. Dreams change. Circumstances change. Maybe our purpose even changes. But our need to live in the greatness of our current moment doesn’t change. Our opportunity to feel the awe and wonder of living doesn’t change. There are still lines to be written, pages to be compiled, dreams to hope, wonders to be experienced, and moments to be shared.

Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away. But not yet. Not. Yet.

Where Are the Big Ideas? We’re Thinking Too Small