Things To-Do By 40

My birthday just passed. In addition to my regular annual questions of, “where did the time go?” or “when my Dad was my age, he looked like he was 63” another important thought came to mind now that I’m conformably in my 40’s and get asked occasionally  

 “What should have I done by age 40?”

Well, after deep thought, here’s my advice of things every father and maybe every man should have done by age 40:

1. Create a Will. It’s the responsible thing to do especially if you have kids. 

2. Save for retirement. Thankfully I started at 22 when my first boss told me these very wise and insightful words, “I have no idea what a 401K is, I just know you put money in it and you won’t die poor.”

3. Run a Marathon. Or in my case a ‘more achievable’ 10K. And then on the day-of feel like your doing pretty awesome; making really good time, and then when you start getting tired, you pass the 1 mile marker, and then for the next 60 minutes ask yourself over and over again, “Oh God, I can’t feel my toes/legs/tongue...! Why did I do this?” 

4. Celebrate a milestone birthday in a foreign country. Preferably at a local karaoke bar in Kyoto, Japan singing to the tune Bee-Gee’s “Night Fever."  Just don’t fall asleep at 6PM.

5. Do something really adventurous with your spouse before having kids. In our case, we went to New Zealand for 3 weeks. One major highlight and life changing experience - we went caving with 2 guides and thought we were going to die repelling 9 stories down a giant hole. At the time I told my wife, “if you survive and I don’t, please make sure my tombstone says, “Sacrificed his life saving his young beautiful wife, and ended up falling 9 stories into a giant hole in the New Zealand countryside’.” 

By the way, I still want my tombstone to say that regardless of how I end up dying.