The Information Advantage of Being 50

There is something you possess at 50 that you simply couldn't have had at 30.

Evidence.

Decades of it.

You have made choices and lived with their consequences. You've worked with people who brought out the best in you and others who diminished you. You've succeeded at things you expected to find difficult and struggled with things you thought would make you happy.

You've experienced relationships, responsibility, disappointment, ambition, compromise, loss, reinvention and change.

You know what it feels like to get something you wanted — and discover whether you actually wanted it once you had it.

All of this is information.

And that gives you an extraordinary advantage when thinking about the next stage of your life.

Experience isn't the same as understanding

Simply accumulating experience doesn't guarantee that we learn from it.

It's perfectly possible to spend 30 years gathering evidence while continuing to make choices according to assumptions formed much earlier.

We repeat familiar patterns. Continue pursuing definitions of success we've never consciously reconsidered. Make decisions based on what we've always done.

The information is there. We just haven't stopped long enough to examine it.

That's one of the great opportunities of reaching your 50s.

You can look backwards not to reminisce or regret, but to extract intelligence.

What has consistently mattered to you?

When have you felt most engaged with your life?

Which compromises proved worthwhile — and which didn't?

What have your choices taught you about the environments, people and experiences in which you thrive?

What have you repeatedly tolerated that you wouldn't choose again?

And perhaps most importantly: what do you know now that you wish you'd known earlier?

Turn hindsight into foresight

We tend to think of hindsight as something that explains the past.

Its more interesting use is helping us design the future.

At 30, much of life necessarily involves experimentation. You simply don't have enough evidence yet.

At 50, you do.

That doesn't mean you suddenly have all the answers. Far from it. But you have far richer material from which to ask better questions.

The challenge is to use it.

Your experience isn't valuable simply because you have accumulated it.

Its real value lies in what you choose to do with it next.