The Next Thirty Years

"My next thirty years will be the best days of my life...
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here in my next thirty years."   Tim McGraw

When I heard the song the first time, it struck me as a real possibility.  "What if I live to be ninety-two?  What if I live another thirty years?"

When I think about my first thirty  years and that I could tack that on again, the thought is quite staggering.  During my first thirty years I lived an entire lifetime with my immediate family in Enterprise, Alabama.  During my first thirty years I earned three college degrees; I got married.  I had a son.  He became two years old in my first thirty years.  Those first two years of his life was a lifetime in and of itself. Rolled over. Cut teeth. Learned to walk. Learned to talk. Even demonstrated some basic math skills.

In those first thirty years after nineteen years of school, I fulfilled a "lifetime" vocational dream.  I enjoyed two years, struggled for another two and just walked away. And in year thirty, I started over again.

These past thirty years were to be even more significant than the first thirty. The most consequential event of this second trimester was that a biochemical imbalance I had battled my entire life was diagnosed and treated. This diagnosis paved the way this last twenty-four years for a level of satisfaction and enjoyment that I never knew  existed during my first thirty years. "Remember that this medication was found by trial and error. The discovery of the usefulness of this medication was mostly due to a series of lucky accidents."  Francis Mondimore, M.D.  Lucky.  I was very, very lucky.

Something else happened during year thirty that made the "next thirty years" (this coming thirty years) financially possible. A life insurance agent introduced to me the concept of the time value of money(TVM) . He used an investment of twenty-five dollars per month as an example. He knew that I had twenty-five dollars.  He calculated this money invested at three different interest rates to my age sixty-five. I had managed to earn a high school diploma and three college degrees, and had never seen this powerful financial concept demonstrated. If TVM is the train, then dollar-cost averaging and compound interest are the engines.  All of a sudden funding a meaningful retirement within our ability to do so seemed possible. But the benefit was not just the future, but the present. Not only did applying this concept change our lives, but four years later I passed the Series 7 and 63 to become a financial advisor with IDS Financial Services. Besides helping dozens of clients manage their money more effectively, every spring I spoke to a local  high school home economics class.  I passed out compound interest tables and demonstrated--you guessed it-- the time value of money. I hope that at least a few were paying attention.

I know all too well how quickly life can be snatched away.  I do not pretend to assume that I will be granted another thirty days, let alone another thirty years.  However, both of my grandmothers and my great aunt lived well into their nineties.  So even  my own family has proven that it can be done.

What if I am given another thirty years?  That means I have a third of my life yet to live.  Another third !!  What could I accomplish with a third of my life?  If I knew for sure, would I need more education?  Have we saved enough money? Is it time to start a new career? Would I need a new hobby?  Would I at least need a new car?

"My next thirty years will be the best days of my life," he sings. I really can't fathom thirty years, but I can somewhat comprehend 10,957 days. So then, will I  wake up tomorrow to the first of my last 11,000 days?  No, I would be a fool to do so.  Tomorrow I'll wake up to tomorrow.  Well, I hope to anyway.  And then the next day and the next day. I plan to live this "next thirty years"  one incredible day at a time.  But just in case I do actually live thirty more years, I think I'll get braces.