40 Is Coming

A few days ago, I had the unfortunate experience of being stuck in an elevator at my job for an hour. On the 13th Floor. On a Friday afternoon. While this highly irritating, slightly traumatizing ordeal was taking place, I decided to do what most writers do. I took this unexpected prompt, opened my notes app, and started writing. This experience was a good metaphor for life moments that happen to...

At this stage of your life, do you still dream? What are your dreams about? What are your dreams no longer about? Who are your dreams for? 40 is a great time to ask: What have your dreams cost you? What has cost you your dreams? Athletes have an offseason, many actors and entertainers have an offseason. Politicians get an offseason. And there are all sorts of occupations and lifestyles that have c...

One of the social media trends I've come to appreciate has been people making TikToks of themselves using the face aging filter. In the majority of the ones that appear in my feed, people generally respond lovingly, gently, and knowingly at the visuals of their future faces. I think this trend, that made it socially acceptable to publicly share images of a version of yourself with more wrinkles, l...

Have you ever experienced the stages of shock, denial, anger, and grief after discovering that someone who you respected and admired was not who you thought they were? At this stage of our lives, a year has not gone by without us witnessing some once-beloved and respected entertainer, politician, local community leader, or religious figure get caught up in a reputation-tainting scandal. And as we...

One of the gifts of turning 40 is the self-awareness to know when to keep your two cents to yourself and sit out a fight, whether over the internet or in your house. But life comes at us fast, and it seems like every few weeks another Really Big Deal Event happen, and many of us answer the battle cry of our group and take to our phones, our TVs, and our streets to stand up and speak out. One of my...

Ignorance can be bliss, the time between when something went wrong and when you found out something went wrong. But what happens your bliss is rudely interrupted by reality and you discover that things are not going to be okay unless you get help. At this point in my life, I realize that there are two kinds of 40-year olds: those who have experienced at least one humbling moment where they weren't...

By 40, many of us have experienced being on multiple sides of expectation-acceptance dance. Many of us had childhoods that were defined by the expectations of others. We saw how their acceptance and approval of us was often determined - or withheld - by how much we met their expectations, or how much we resisted and went against them. And this social reward/punishment system continued into multipl...

Taking an episode to celebrate the impact of the semi-strangers in our lives. They are not the super famous figures who had an impact on our lives. They are also not the super foundational people who have close, personal connections to us and to our life story. They are the people in the middle. We may not have known them well, but they made an impact on us, they played a role in our lives, and th...

When you're young, ignorance is bliss. By 40, more often than not, ignorance is just expensive. And what's even more expensive than ignorance? Procrastination. Those things that we know we should not put off, delay, and ignore but we do anyway. Whether because of fear or fatigue, denial or distractions, being overwhelmed and/or underpaid, most of us have some area of our lives where we have been w...

When was the first time you knew you were adult? When you moved out on your own? When you took over paying the bills for older/younger loved ones? When you accepted responsibility and accountability for your actions? One of the things we all come to realize is that there are levels to adulting. One key level of adult life is being able to identify and prioritize the essential components of our liv...

Have you ever found yourself disconnected and detached at the kind of party you used to enjoy, with people you used to be comfortable with, in a space that you used to look forward to going to? When was the first time you remember feeling isolated, alone, and/or invisible in a space full of friends,family, neighbors, or coworkers? When was the most recent time you felt like this? How do you naviga...

Do you love to travel on your birthday? Are you the kind of person who needs to take some sort of trip - whether across town or across the globe - as part of your birthday festivities? But sometimes life happens, and we have to adapt and adjust, and expand our definition of what a getaway can be. Do you find that you still feel pressure to have plan big birthday trips, have Instagrammable birthday...

Does anyone else feel the strange pressure to look young on the day when the calendar is literally reminding you that you've never been older?! At this stage in your life, are you finding that how you think and feel about your body on your birthday is more about how well your body is actually doing, or more about the expectations and opinions from friends, family, and/or society about what your bo...

How often have you looked at a situation, looked around at the people with/near you, and decided that you were going to have to be the one to make sure that things didn't go bad on your watch? What are the muscles you've built from the times when you've had to go it alone and get it done by yourself? What are wounds and scars that came as a consequence of not having anyone by your side? How have y...

When did you start weighing the tradeoffs between a good night's sleep and a good night out? For many of us, turning 40 means that our preferences have shifted in when we find the time to have a good time. Everything from where we are willing to go, when we are willing to go, how long we are willing to stay, who we are willing to go with, and what we are willing to wear. At this stage in your life...

Who do you go to for advice about money? How many of those people did you find online? For those of us turning 40 at this moment, our adult lives have overlapped with the rise of real-time financial data, the rise of the personal finance media industry, and the rise of the financial expert/influencer. And it feels like we've seen it all: from cable TV stock pickers and social media real estate gur...

Few things are more sobering than realizing how easily your day, your month, or a whole season of your life can be altered by one random decision by one random stranger on a random day. Anyone who has ever had their property attacked or their body assaulted knows, listing what was taken from you is different than thinking about what you lost. When an incident like this happens, our common triage a...

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. You may or may not spend a lot of time on social media. You may or may not care about Twitter, or its CEO. But we all have blue checks in our lives. Most of societal structures and social norms that influence how we see ourselves, and how others see us, we had no role in creating. Social media is one of the rare instances where we were present at its...

This episode is for givers. The people who have everything, for everyone else. Those who do everything, give everything, fix everything, find everything...for everyone else. When do you allow yourself to take? When do you ask for what you need? Which area(s) of your life do you keep for yourself? April 2023 Univ. of Pennsylvania Knowledge at Wharton Interview with Adam Grant: Givers vs. Takers: Th...

At this stage of your life, are you still finding a stream of potential new friends for you to meet? How have your friendships changed and evolved over the years? Has the way you make friends changed over the years? Are you still making friends? Have your various identities - in your family, relationship, wealth, beliefs - impacted who you've kept as a friend, who considers you a friend, and who y...

What irritates you at this stage of your life? Has your opinion on what is annoying, self-righteous behvaior changed over the years? Are there things that you now do - and you know rub other people the wrong way - which you have doubled down on, regardless of who is bothered by it? Follow us on social media: @40iscoming_ on IG and @40iscoming everywhere else. Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybi...

What have you experienced or witnessed that has changed the choices you make in certain areas of your life? Is there something that you can't unsee that has caused you to change the way you think and act? The late legendary author Maya Angelou once reflected on her life by saying, "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." Doing better is a choice, a commitment, and s...

After years of trial and error, listening to different points of view, and trying new approaches, at this point in your life, how do you deal with being told that what you're doing isn't right, isn't enough, or isn't helpful anymore...and that you need to try again? Follow us on social media: @40iscoming_ on IG and @40iscoming everywhere else. Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee Beats Provi...

"It is better to give than to receive." Often, we give right after receiving. Whether what we've received is a rush of happy hormones after seeing/experiencing something wonderful, or a vibe-killing wave of sadness/shame after being made aware of something horrible, a strong motivator for us to take action and do good in the world is driven by temporary moments of heightened emotion. At this stage...

At this point in your life, what are some things you simply will not do? In your personal life, with your family, on your job, as you navigate the society, are there things you will always do? How are you creating the "Will and Won't" lists in your life? Follow us on social media: @40iscoming_ on IG and @40iscoming everywhere else. Intro Theme Music: Stressed by artbybigvee Beats Provided By https...