10 Reasons Life Begins At 40
We have all heard the time worn phrase ‘life begins at 40’ and of course the pithy rejoinder ‘and ends at 41’. How many of us know the origin of the phrase or even understand what it is trying to say to us. The first part of the saying, which appeared on the scene in the early part of the 20th Century was actually a popular saying and gained currency when it was used as the title of a 1932 self help book by a gentleman called Walter Pitkin. The book was predicated
on the fact that while date life expectancy in the US in the 1880s was only 40 years this had expanded rapidly, even given the horrors of the First World War and the Depression, to a (for the time) staggering 60 years at birth and still rising. Suddenly people had a potential retirement to look forward to, 40 was no longer considered old, rather it was a stepping off point into a new, previously unimagined, age of opportunities.These days, of course, our life expectancy is much higher and many people are living healthy lives into their 70s, 80s and even 90s and beyond. With that in mind does the saying still apply? Is life over by the time you hit 35 or do the facts that we have families later and have the responsibility to care for ageing parents at the same time as we raise our children now mean that we have to wait until we hit 50 or 60 to really start enjoying ourselves? We firmly believe that life still starts at 40 and here are 10 reasons why!
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