Sixty-Something: Planning, Learning, Changing, Living

“Plan like you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.” As a young high school kid, I remember reading this saying over Coach Augie Auteri’s desk in his office. It was boldly printed on a rectangular sign that you could not miss. As a teenager, I believed I just might live forever, the future seemed so far down the road. A road that went on forever. As a sixty-something I still can’t see the end of the road yet but I now feel every bump in it, more so daily.

The older I get, the more I learn. Mahatma Gandhi always said, “Learn as if you were to live forever.” Profound thought. Yet Mr. Gandhi’s legacy of words will most likely live a very long time. But forever, heck that’s a really long time. I hope the east end stays special forever. Those who come to live on the east end learn why it is so special. Those born here know of no other way of life. That doesn’t mean then don’t know the ways of the world, it means they feel it’s most natural to have an ocean and beautiful beaches just a few miles from home. After living twenty years on the south shore of Long Island I now still appreciate the proximity of the ocean. Where I grew up the ocean beach was a day trip away. Now it’s sipping half a cup of coffee away.

Change is what happens with every sunrise, every tide, every day. They say if you don’t ride the wave of change it will crush you. At this point in life us sixty-something folks are watching more waves than we are riding. I remember as a kid at Jones Beach I tried to body surf almost every wave, the bigger the better; now while at Ditch Plains beach, I watch seasoned surfers waiting for the perfect wave to ride. The perfect wave to ride is different for everyone, yet in the end I believe the thrill to be almost the same.

I still can remember the moment I decided to radically change my life. I was hit with a bolt of east end magic as I was actually wearing a pinstripe suit, white shirt, solid color tie along with fine black laced shoes. Now it’s shorts in the summer, jeans or long khaki trousers in the winter. The gift of south shore east end living was no bargain. There is always a cost to be paid cashing in the chips to leave a life of many decades. For the first few years folks back west said, “He is hiding in the Hamptons.”

I decided to live like I might die tomorrow, but it had a cost. Not being all in on making big bucks definitely will cost you folks you thought were your best friends. Yet, you make new friends who you joke with and aim through the rest of your life. It becomes a mentality to do things saying, “if not now, then when.”

Who has not missed an opportunity because they thought yes, but just not now. For us sixty-something folks “the future is now!”

The holiday seasons are approaching, Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas and Hanukkah. The east end embraces these holidays as amazing as anywhere. Sooner than later pines with lights will be up on the main streets of all the hamlets. The wheels of time do spin, the pages change and we move into what is next. We still control what is next. That was something the Covid-19 epidemic taught us.

Loving where you live and how you live is a gift freedom gives you. Seeing the world events has to reinforce we live in a wonderful place at a time of immense opportunities even at this advanced age. The future is a state of mind. The past is a measuring stick. Today is an immediate opportunity to do.