There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.
Interpretation
Embracing age brings wisdom; the tragedy lies in longing for youth.
This quote by William Holden highlights the importance of accepting one's age and the experiences that come with it. There is no inherent tragedy in being fifty; rather, the sorrow arises when one compares this stage of life to the youthful age of twenty-five, which can lead to dissatisfaction and a lack of appreciation for the present moment.
In practice
In a speech about aging, one might say, 'As William Holden wisely noted, there's nothing tragic about being fifty.'
One is rarely an impulsive innovator after the age of sixty, but one can still be a very fine orderly and inventive thinker. One rarely procreates children at that age, but one is all the more skilled at educating those who have already been procreated, and education is procreation of another kind.
Take one, and you cannot take the other. But neither path is safe. Which way would you walk β the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies?
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.
A man should inure himself to voluntary labor, and not give up to indulgence and pleasure, as they beget no good constitution of body nor knowledge of mind.
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Instead of taking the reader by the hand and running him down the hill, I want to lead him into a house of many rooms, and leave him alone in each of them.
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