At one point in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell notes that regrets are simply illuminations that arrive too late. In the past few years, I’ve had some ups and downs. And, in the wake of that, I’ve had countless illuminations, as well as more insights and moments of growth than in entire decades prior. But, happily, I don’t think those are arriving too late.

Today, I turned 39. And, at least based on good family genes and the best estimates of actuarial tables, I’m hoping to have a whole second half of my life ahead of me. Which is why I’m feeling particularly optimistic this birthday. I’ve been considering today a pivot, the point after which the years ahead are open vistas of possibility. And I’m looking forward to decades of putting those new-found, hard-won insights and illuminations to good use.