(#030) On Aging and Renewal

Whenever we talk about self-renewal, it's impossible not to talk — explicitly or implicitly — about aging.

If self-renewal is about change — not just in our behaviors, but in our identity — and if it’s true that self-renewal is never fast (because it takes time to truly understand what no longer fits in our life, and just as much time, plus trial and error, to reimagine what should take its place), then the question:

"Yes, but how much time do I still have to see it through?"

is not only natural — it’s imperative.

To make this more concrete, take entrepreneurship as an example.

We live in a time when being commercially successful in your twenties is practically a cliché.

The economy has, inch by inch, evolved to deliver tools and platforms that let anyone learn fast — Internet, search engines, free tutorials, online classes, and now AI — and to act faster: launching service-based or product-based ideas with websites, e-commerce platforms, virtual assistants, on-demand talent markets, direct-to-audience channels via social media, contract manufacturing, global procurement platforms, white-label services, automated order fulfillment. The list goes on.

Every year, new examples emerge to prove that you don’t need decades of experience to start something and find your way to success.

Bryan Johnson was 30 when he founded Braintree (later sold to PayPal for $800 million).

Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, launched his YouTube channel at 14 (now earning over $50 million a year) and started his businesses — snack foods and ghost kitchens — in his early 20s.

Melanie Perkins founded Canva at 26. She’s now worth nearly $6 billion.

Austin Russell started Luminar at 17 and took it public at 25, becoming a billionaire in the process.

Even Sam Altman was just around 30 when he co-founded OpenAI.

These are just a handful of people who entered the game with a few years of experience — not a decade, not two, not a lifetime — played their cards well, and dramatically changed their lives. In some cases, they even changed the world.

Yes, patience is an often-overlooked virtue in business (a subject for another day), but increasingly, youth is seen not as a limitation — but as an advantage.

You don't need a lifetime of experience to do something that matters.

And yet, as the years pass, we tend to fear starting fresh. We play defense.

Like any widespread behavior, this has a logical foundation. As we age, we develop a clearer sense of what matters, and we become more aware of how finite life is. We begin to feel urgency. Our tolerance for spending a day on something that doesn't feel like a win drops sharply — as if each day might be our last.

A new contract signed, a pay bump, praise from a colleague or boss. A piece of work done well and with ease. An afternoon with a trusted friend. A sport we’ve practiced long enough to be good at. Sealing the day with a success starts to feel essential — almost as if we’re looking for daily validation because, after so many years, the accountant might stop by, and we’d better have something to show for it.

There is merit to living with urgency.

But sometimes, it turns toxic.

Because urgency can convince us we no longer have time to be beginners — to start from zero, to suck at something new, to let it take five years to grow into something that changes us — or maybe even a little corner of the world.

That fear pushes us into doubling down on sunk costs: staying the course in careers that no longer fulfill us, holding on to habits that no longer serve us, clinging to roles and relationships that we no longer fit into.

In other words

We begin to believe we don’t have enough time to become who we’re meant to be. Only enough to be a slightly better version of who we already are.

Nothing frightens me more than that idea of getting stuck.

Take water.

Take oxygen.

But leave me the freedom to pursue what’s calling me.

The real sign of aging isn’t fearing we won’t be in peak shape for much longer. The real sign of aging is feeling like we no longer have time to work on ourselves.

Here’s a mental exercise:
Ask yourself, “If I had a hundred more years ahead of me — if I could stop pretending the next five were my only shot — what would I start learning now? What would I allow myself to become five years from now, even if I had to be a beginner today?”

This is not an invitation to blow up your life without a plan. There are smart and less smart ways to begin again — just as there are at 20.

Besides, by the time you’re 50, you likely know yourself better. You’ve lived more, failed more, observed more. You’re often better equipped to make one or two good bets.

There’s much more to say here (I’ll save that for a longer piece), but I’ll wrap this up with one simple idea — perhaps the most important protocol of all when it comes to self-renewal:

Choose your friends wisely.

Surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid of you changing — in fact, surround yourself with people who celebrate it. People who show the same curiosity, the same pursuit, the same youth.

The inertia against self-renewal is strong enough on its own. You don’t need the extra weight.

L.F