Miles, Not Years
It ain't how old you are, it’s how far you’ve come.
Life should be measured in miles, not years.
I left home for a new world, and in three short years feel like I've lived ten.
A move full of experiences: hope, love, fear, birth, grief, start-up, failure, marriage, success, regret, beginnings.
People ask for advice - not because I know better, but because I've been through more shit. After all, good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from terrible judgement.
It's the miles that underpin mastery.
Jobs with many, varied projects graduate us faster; constant disasters speed rookies into veterans. Josh Waitzkin mastered chess, writing, sailing, taiji... make smaller circles, he says: anything to accelerate getting heaps more reps.
Gladwell hypes 10,000 hours, but it's 10,000 hours well spent. Pilots need time in the air. Soldiers need time in the field. For cyclists, it's k's in the legs. I reflected with a former boss how, thrown together in business, I'd clocked up more adventures with him in a few months than many lifelong friends.
Life, work, friendship - don't kill time; embrace it and you can get miles ahead in talent and wisdom.
Because you can live a short, glorious life - or a long, dull one.
A career of sluggish months, or of weeks when decades happen.
Cause it ain't the years - it's the miles that matter.
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image: Tima Miroshnichenko
