The Weight of Years

Grow Up

Grow Up: an I am Me Primer for Boyhood Smarts

Don’t Be a Wiseacre

Assume the Elder Knows More—Because He’s Seen More.

1. The First Rule of Youth is Humility.

You were not here before. He was.
He’s buried people you’ve never met.
He’s remembered things you’ve never known.
And he’s forgotten things that once tore his soul in two.

2. Age is Self-Awareness.

Not always, but more often than not, the years sand away illusions.
Pain teaches a man to look at himself.
Failure makes him examine his motives.
Time presses him into honesty, or breaks him entirely.
If he’s still standing, he’s already survived what you don’t yet understand.

3. You May Be Right. But That’s Not the Point.

Even a fool can stumble upon the truth.
But if you speak it without awareness, without respect for the listener’s journey,
Then you dishonor the truth itself.
When you correct a man older than you without permission,
you display your ignorance—not your insight.
He has already thought of what you’re thinking.
He has already lived it.

4. Gravity is Gained by Time.

This is the spirit of the matter—
Gravitas.
The soul’s weight.
It thunders with decades of wrestling against it all. Against everything. Against himself.
When an old man speaks less, it is because he has more to say.
And when you feel the urge to instruct him, you only expose how little you yet know, most of all, of yourself.

5. A Man of Wisdom Learns to Listen First.

You want to become strong? Learn when to shut up.
You want to lead? Learn to follow.
You want to be heard? Learn to hear.
The man who sees himself clearly will bow before the one who has walked longer through the shadows.