alanwatts motivation philosophy spirituality fyp

You see, there is something rather extraordinary that happens to a person around the age of 40. Not to everyone, mind you, but to those who have been paying attention, to those who have not been entirely asleep through the first half of their lives. And what happens is this, they wake up, not with a jolt, not with some dramatic revelation necessarily, but with a quiet recognition that everything they thought was important, well, it simply is not. Now, this is curious, because we have been told our entire lives that youth is the golden time, that the 20s and 30s are when life really happens, when we are supposed to be climbing ladders and making names for ourselves and proving to the world that we matter. And so we spend those decades running. Running after what, exactly? Running after an idea. An idea of success that somebody else handed to us. An idea of happiness that came from some magazine or some television program. An idea of who we should be that has nothing whatsoever to do with who we actually are. I remember being 25 and thinking I had it all figured out. I knew exactly where I was going and exactly how to get there. So I was so certain, so absolutely convinced, that if I just worked hard enough, if I just achieved enough, if I just accumulated enough, then I would finally be happy. And you know what happened? I worked hard, I achieved, I accumulated. And when I got there, when I reached that place I thought was the destination, I looked around and said, is that all? Because you see, the first 40 years of life, they are really a kind of preparation. Not a preparation in the way we usually think of it, as in preparing for something better later. No, it is more like the way a caterpillar prepares to become a butterfly. The caterpillar does not know it is preparing. It is simply living, eating leaves, crawling around, doing what caterpillars do. But all the while, something is building inside it. Something is getting ready. This is what your 20s and 30s are. You are the caterpillar. You think you are just living your life, making your mistakes, having your heartbreaks, building your career, trying to figure out who you are supposed to be. But really, you are gathering material. You are collecting experiences. You are learning lessons that you will not understand until much, much later. When you are young, life feels urgent. Everything matters so desperately much. That job you did not get. That person who rejected you. That mistake you made at the party last weekend. It all feels like the end of the world. Because when you are young, you believe that every moment is defining you. That every choice is permanent. That every failure is a judgment on your worth as a human being. But here is what nobody tells you. All of that urgency, all of that desperation, it is just noise. It is the sound of your ego trying very hard to construct itself. Trying to build an identity out of achievements and possessions and other people's opinions. And the ego must be built, you see. This is part of the process. You cannot skip this step. You must first believe you are somebody before you can discover that you are nobody. Or rather, that you are everybody. That you are the whole thing. Around 40, something shifts. And what shifts is this. You begin to see through the game. Not all at once, perhaps. Maybe it starts with small things. You stop caring quite so much about what your neighbors think. You find yourself less interested in impressing people. You notice that the things you once thought were so important, the title on your business card, the car in your driveway, the number in your bank account, they start to feel rather hollow. And this is when the fear comes. Because if you are not your achievements, if you are not your possessions, if you are not your role in society, then who are you? This is the question that terrifies people. This is why so many people around this age buy sports cars or have affairs or make dramatic changes they later regret. They are running from the question. They are trying very hard not to see what is becoming obvious. But if you do not run, if you sit still and let the question be there, something remarkable happens. You begin to notice that beneath all the roles you have been playing, beneath all the masks you have been wearing, there is something else. Something that was there all along. Something that never changed, even though everything in your life changed. The Buddhists call this your true nature. The Hindus call it Atman. I simply call it you. The real you. Not the you that your parents wanted you to be. Not the you that society expected you to become. Not the you that you have been trying so hard to prove is worthy and good and successful. But the you that exists underneath all of that. The you that watches thoughts arise and pass away. The you that remains constant while everything else flows and changes. And here is why life begins at 40. Because this is when you finally have enough experience to see the pattern. You have lived long enough to watch your certainties crumble. You have been disappointed enough times to stop believing in fairy tales. You have lost enough to understand that everything is temporary. You have hurt enough to develop compassion. You have failed enough to let go of perfectionism. Think about it. In your 20s, every mistake feels catastrophic because you have not yet learned that you will survive it. In your 30s, you are still trying to prove yourself. Still trying to convince the world that you matter. But by 40, you have made so many mistakes and survived them all that you begin to realize mistakes are not catastrophes. They are just mistakes. You have tried so hard to prove yourself and discovered that no amount of proof is ever enough. The people who love you, love you regardless. The people who do not love you will not be convinced by your achievements. This is liberation. Not the kind of liberation that comes from escaping your life. But the kind that comes from finally accepting it. From finally accepting yourself. Every wrinkle, every failure, every foolish thing you have ever done. All of it. Because you see, those first 40 years, you were building something. You thought you were building a career or a family or a reputation. But really, you were building material. Draw material that you will now use to become who you actually are. I knew a man once who spent his entire youth climbing the ladder at a bank. He worked 70-hour weeks. He missed his children's birthdays. He sacrificed his health, his marriage, his peace of mind. All for the next promotion. And then it fall...