Getting old...making plans

My wonderful wife has been sharing her thoughts here as we prepare to embark on the journey of parenthood. Well, I'm feeling nostalgic tonight, so fasten your seatbelt.

Once you reach a certain age, getting old isn't easy. I turned 30 this week and it is hitting me hard. Since I was in junior high school, I feel like my life has been a continual procession of goals, tests, accomplishments, and the occasional failure. Each challenge served a purpose - namely to move to the "next level" in life. I've always had a fear of being a failure in life, ever since I was a kid. It's weird, I know. When I was 12, I was worrying about stuff a lot of 40 year olds don't worry about.

So I started working. "B's" in school were unacceptable. A "B" meant failure. A "B" in middle school meant it was less likely I would be ready for AP classes in high school. If I didn't take and do well in AP classes in high school, it was unlikely I'd get in to a top flight college. Can you imagine? I was already thinking about what college I'd go to when I was 13.

I got one "B" in high school in AP Calculus (at that point I had already gotten in to college, so I allowed myself this extravagance). College brought more pressure. I quickly learned that the occasional "B" may need to be tolerated, but I convinced myself that without a Latin phrase following the words "graduated from the University of Notre Dame" on my resume, I was toast in the job market.

Upon graduating, I began to think that a college degree isn't what it used to be, and I needed more ways to differentiate myself. Graduate school was the answer to that. I got a Masters Degree in accountancy with a focus in taxation. Can you believe that? What was I thinking. Do you know how boring taxes are? It was insane. But I had a job locked up, so no matter.

The problem with tax jobs is that they're boring and very arduous. If you do the math, your time works out to be about minimum wage working at Burger King. So I decided to get into the investment business because it was more interesting and paid better. I needed a way to distinguish myself, so I enrolled in the CFA program.

I won't get into the details of what this means. If you're unfamiliar, I'll just say it's extremely difficult and sucks up about 1,000 hours of your life (if you're in the lucky 10% of people who pass all three tests consecutively - otherwise it's more). You don't see your wife. You study 3-4 hours a day on top of normal work for about 6 months a year for 3 years (again, if you're lucky), and you generally hate life.

So where am I now? I eventually passed all these silly tests I forced on myself. I'm a CFA charterholder, a double graduate of one of the finest institutions of higher learning in this country, a holder of a perfect high school GPA, and a prodigious life planner since the age of 12. I'm out of tests. But you know what? None of that crap matters.

Because now I'm 30, and it's hit me harder than ever that life is what happens when you're making other plans. It's not what you accomplish for yourself, but what impact you have on those around you. In general, the impetus all of these goals, work, accomplishments, and failures has been selfish ambition. I've been trying to get ahead. Trying to beat the other guy. It's tiring.

It makes me feel like I've wasted some time.

At the precipice of parenthood, I have great hopes for my daughter. I hope to see her do amazing things in her life, but I don't want her to do them solely for herself. More than anything, I want to see her serve God and those around her.

That would make me quite proud. I just hope she figures it out before she's 30.