The older the better | 4 min read

Hey slugger, are you ready to hit this week out of the park? Or maybe you are playing defence? If so, make sure you have your good ol’ glove ready!

The story

Many things get better with age.

Wine, whiskey, cheese, linen, denim, and leather all improve over time. They become softer, richer, more comfortable, and more valuable.

I recently bought my wife, Jen, a new baseball glove. When she slipped it on, her immediate reaction was, "It needs to be worked in."

A new glove is stiff. The ball bounces around and is harder to catch. But with time and use, the leather softens, the pocket forms, and the glove becomes an extension of your hand, easier to handle and you catch more balls.

My son, Benny, now plays t-ball with his Uncle Chris's Mizuno glove, which is more than 30 years old. That glove has travelled from Canada to Malta, from Malta to Japan, back to Malta, and eventually back to Canada again. It has seen thousands of throws and catches. Today, it works better than the day it left the factory.

The same is true of many things we value. People often joke that they don't make washing machines like they used to. The old ones had fewer buttons and fewer features, but they were built to last.

Surprisingly, the same may be true for happiness.

Extensive psychological research shows that, contrary to popular stereotypes that we get grumpier, people generally become happier and experience less stress and anxiety as they age.

Happiness tends to follow a U-shaped curve. It often declines through midlife as careers, finances, parenting, and responsibilities compete for our attention. Then, sometime around age 50, it begins to rise again, with many people reporting some of the highest levels of well-being later in life.

So what if we didn't wait until 50?

What if we started living a little more like older, happier people today?

Our emotions are a lot like a baseball glove. The more life uses them, the better grasp we have on them. Experience teaches us that most setbacks pass, most worries fade, and most problems are smaller than they initially appear. Older adults are often better at moving past negative emotions because they have practiced doing it for decades.

The good news is that we can practice too.

Research also suggests that older adults spend more time focusing on positive memories and positive experiences. They are more likely to appreciate what is going well rather than obsess over what is going wrong. (They don’t needed as much reminding to wear their rose coloured glasses).

We can train that perspective through gratitude, reflection, and by intentionally noticing the good things happening around us.

Older adults also tend to invest deeper in fewer relationships. They become more selective with their time and attention. Rather than trying to maintain dozens of superficial connections, they focus on the people who matter most.

That is a lesson available to all of us. Every relationship we invest in comes with an opportunity cost. Sometimes spending less time on one relationship creates room for another that brings greater meaning, support, and joy.

As we age, our perspective changes. We become better at distinguishing between what we can control and what we can't. We waste less energy fighting reality and spend more energy influencing the things that are actually within our reach (we become better at knowing how to use CIA).

You don't have to wait until you're 50 to start doing any of these things.

You can slow down now.

You can focus on the positives now.

You can invest more deeply in the relationships that matter now.

Jen doesn’t have to wait 30 years to get her glove in the same shape as Benny’s. There are things she can do now.

This Friday was busier than usual. There were meetings to follow up on, emails waiting for replies, and my phone was buzzing with messages from friends trying to make plans.

I'll get back to them.

But right now, there is nothing I'd rather do than play catch with my family in the field across from my house.

As the sun dipped below the hill, the evening light turned everything a soft rose colour. I looked at my wife and kids passing the ball around and thought to myself, no need for the glasses this time.

The Pebble

The challenge

There are creams, kits and lots of other tools you can use to break in a baseball glove faster. What are some tools and strategies that you can use to help break in your emotions faster so that you can can catch more good vibes and watch as the bad ones go foul?

After all, we do not want to wait until the 9th inning to try and win the game.