""You can't be afraid of getting old. Old is good, if you're gathering in life." At sixty-six, after forty years of pulling wire and bending conduit, I get it. The man's right. I used to dread getting older. Every birthday after fifty felt like a countdown to irrelevance. Now I realize I had it backwards. Getting older isn't about losing things-it's about finally understanding what you've been collecting all along."
"When you're young, you think aging is just about your body breaking down. Bad knees, reading glasses, making that noise when you stand up. And yeah, all that happens. But that's not the real story. The real story is that you start seeing patterns. All those random experiences, mistakes, small victories-they start connecting. Like finding out all those loose wires you've been tracing actually go somewhere important."
At sixty-six and after forty years of hands-on electrical work, life is seen as an accumulation of meaning rather than decline. Small acts of help, training apprentices, and building customer relationships add up into a web of connections that outlast projects and paychecks. Patterns emerge from repeated mistakes, successes, and everyday choices, turning failures into teaching stories for younger workers. Gratitude grows for the lessons learned and the people made along the way. Aging becomes recognition of what has been gathered: practical knowledge, relationships, perspective, and a sense of purpose that coalesces over time.
Read at Silicon Canals
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