Something to Prove?

Sadly, I have lost many of my great mentors, and several of my friends—including a former coach— are now in their 80s. I was having dinner with an 80-something friend, and he was telling me how different life felt after 80. I suggested I could imagine that. Life felt different for me at 50 and even more so at 60 and I'm sure it will at 80 as well. But he corrected me. He said it was something much more than that. For him, 80 was profoundly different. He said he was living an excellent life and maybe because he had a different mindset.

“At 80,” he said, “you have nothing left to prove. You've already done what you needed to do, you don't have to worry as much, so you just live more. Now I don't care if people see the dandelions in my yard and I don't care how they feel about the way I voted or the causes I support. I have nothing to prove. And I'm living my best life because of that.” But it was what he said next that really struck me.

“At 80 you realize you have nothing to prove. And if you think a little longer, you realize you never did.”

Wow.

We often live as if we’re on trial, trying to prove our worth. We believe this job or accomplishment or raise or whatever will prove our worth. But what if we never needed to? What if the life we’re building, right now, is already enough? Maybe we can start letting go of the imaginary scoreboard. The freedom my friend feels at 80? Maybe we can start feeling a bit of that right now.

Let’s be clear: Having nothing to prove doesn’t mean we have nothing to do. We still have plenty to do—plans, projects, acts of service. The difference is, we’re doing them not to fill some deficiency or to earn our place in the world. We already have our place in the world. We belong. And when we operate from that grounded truth, maybe the things we choose to do can be done with more joy and authenticity but most of all, more freedom. Freedom from that gnawing fear that we are not enough; freedom from the anxiety that tells us we are human doings when really, we are human beings; freedom from that deep-seated fear that makes what we are doing an attempt to fill an imaginary hole in us that was never really there to begin with.

We are enough.

Yes, we have much to do. Yet,

We are enough.

We do it because we believe in it and know the impact we can have on the world.

Plenty to do, nothing to prove. Sounds like a pretty good life.