Monday, I turn 62.
That sentence looked a hell of a lot better when it said 60.
Two years ago, I had the symmetry of turning 60 while marking 40 years in politics and public service.
60/40.
Clean. Memorable. Almost statesmanlike.
Now it’s 62/42.
That sounds less like a milestone and more like the final score of a Rutgers game that slipped away in the fourth quarter.
But birthdays are useful. They force an audit.
Not of titles. Not of money. Not of elections won or lost, offices held, plaques collected or dinners where somebody spent nine minutes introducing you before you spent six minutes speaking.
The important audit is simpler:
What have you learned?
And maybe the most important day in anybody’s life is the day you finally realize you know what you don’t know.
It takes a while.
At 20, I knew everything.
At 30, I was certain of it.
At 40, I began developing suspicions.
At 50, the evidence became overwhelming.
At 62, I can now confidently report that there are entire continents of things I don’t know.
That’s not surrender.
That’s wisdom.
One of politics’ great traps is that it rewards certainty. Have an answer. Pick a side. Defend the position. Never admit doubt. Never let the other guy have a point.
Real life teaches almost exactly the opposite.
Sometimes the other guy does have a point.
Sometimes your opponent is right, and your friend is wrong.
Sometimes the smartest person in the room is the one who says, “I don’t know.”
And sometimes the bravest political act is changing your mind after the facts change.
That took me years to learn.
Here’s another lesson:
Know when to leave.
Politics is filled with people who know how to win an office and have absolutely no idea how to leave one.
There is always another election. Another term. Another title. Another reason you’re indispensable.
You’re not.
None of us is.
The man I succeeded in the State Senate had served a very long time. Toward the end, someone drew a political cartoon of him wearing a shawl, hooked up to oxygen and eating tapioca pudding.
It was cruel.
It was also effective because everybody understood the point.
He had stayed too long.
I never forgot that cartoon, maybe because it’s framed and hanging in my office.
Not only because I wanted his seat, which I did.
Because I never wanted to become the cartoon.
There is dignity in knowing when you’ve done your part.
There is wisdom in recognizing that the next generation doesn’t need you standing in the doorway explaining how much better you were at their age.
Open the door.
Hold it.
Then get the hell out of the way.
I’d much rather be a 62-year-old elder statesman than an aging officeholder.
An officeholder has a title.
An elder statesman has a telephone people still answer after the title is gone.
That’s better.
Which brings me to perhaps the best thing age has given me:
I like whom I like.
That sounds ridiculously simple.
In politics, it can be revolutionary.
I have Republican friends. Democratic friends. Conservative friends. Liberal friends. Friends who have supported me, opposed me, endorsed against me, voted against me, and probably said some fairly creative things about me when I wasn’t in the room.
Some of them I love dearly.
And I no longer need permission from anybody to do that.
One of the stupidest ideas in modern politics is that friendship constitutes ideological surrender.
If you’re a Republican, you’re supposed to be suspicious of Democrats.
If you’re a Democrat, you’re supposed to be suspicious of Republicans.
Have dinner with the wrong person, and somebody takes a picture.
Laugh with the wrong person, and somebody posts it.
Praise the wrong person, and suddenly somebody wants to know whether you’ve “changed sides.”
No.
I’ve gotten older.
There should be no Republican friendships or Democratic friendships.
There should just be friendships.
If your political party gets angry because you associate with people you admire, respect or love, that’s the party’s problem.
If somebody demands that you abandon a friend to prove your loyalty, you are being asked to demonstrate the wrong kind of loyalty.
I wish I understood that at 30 as well as I understand it at 62.
Because after 42 years around politics, I can tell you what remains after the campaigns end.
Not the mail pieces.
Not the endorsements.
Not the county committee fights.
Not the convention floor passes.
Not the breathless story about who sat next to whom at some rubber-chicken dinner in 1997.
The friendships remain.
The person who calls when you’re sick.
The person who shows up when somebody dies.
The person who remembers your kid’s name.
The person who doesn’t need anything from you.
The person who knew you before the title and somehow still likes you after it.
Those people become more precious with every passing year.
You also learn to stop keeping score.
This may be the hardest lesson in politics.
Politics trains you to remember everything.
Who endorsed who,
Who returned the call.
Who didn’t.
Who gave money.
Who didn’t.
Who stood with you.
Who disappeared.
Who got credit.
Who stole credit.
Who leaked.
Who lied.
Who smiled at you while doing both.
You can carry that ledger around forever.
Or you can put it down.
The older I get, the less interested I am in winning arguments that no longer matter.
The grudge you have been nursing for 20 years?
The other guy may have forgotten it 19 years ago.
The person who didn’t invite you?
Maybe it saved you three hours and a dry chicken breast.
The guy who doesn’t like you?
There are eight billion people on Earth.
Try somebody else.
Freedom comes when you reach the age when you no longer feel compelled to attend every fight you are invited to.
There is even greater freedom in realizing you don’t have to win every fight.
Some battles matter.
Most don’t.
Learning the difference is one of life’s graduate courses.
So is learning that power is rented.
Every office has a previous occupant and a next occupant.
Every chairman becomes a former chairman.
Every senator becomes a former senator.
Every governor eventually watches another governor sit behind the same desk.
The motorcade stops.
The staff moves on.
Somebody else gets the good parking space.
And eventually, if you’ve done this right, you discover that the best people in your life never cared about the parking space anyway.
Forty-two years ago, a 20-year-old kid walked into Congressman Joe Minish’s office as an intern.
He had more hair, fewer pounds, and an impressive collection of opinions.
If I could talk to him today, I wouldn’t tell him which races to run or which jobs to take.
I wouldn’t tell him how to avoid the losses.
Some losses are tuition.
I would tell him something else.
Listen more.
Forgive faster.
Call your parents.
Keep the friends who knew you before you became important.
Make new friends who couldn’t care less whether you’re important.
Don’t confuse loyalty with obedience.
Don’t confuse longevity with accomplishment.
Don’t confuse confidence with knowledge.
And never, ever become so attached to a chair that somebody has to draw you wearing a shawl and eating tapioca pudding before you realize it’s time to leave.
Most of all, understand that politics is something you do.
It is not who you are.
That distinction matters.
Because eventually the campaign ends, the office changes hands, the name comes off the door, and somebody younger starts sitting in your chair.
Then comes the only question that really matters:
Who are you when nobody has to return your call?
If the answer is husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend, mentor, neighbor—and maybe somebody who made a few things better along the way—you did all right.
That’s the wisdom I wish somebody had pounded into my head 42 years ago.
Nobody beats the clock.
But you can beat the temptation to waste it.
You can spend less time with people who make you angry and more time with people who make you laugh.
You can stop demanding perfection from old friends.
You can call somebody you haven’t spoken to because neither of you can remember anymore what the fight was about.
You can sit down with a Democrat.
You can sit down with a Republican.
Hell, if the restaurant is good enough, sit down with both.
And you can stop worrying whether somebody from your own team is watching.
Monday, I turn 62.
I’m not thrilled about the number.
But I like the view from here.
You can see backward far enough to recognize your mistakes.
You can see far enough back to recognize your mistakes.
And somewhere between those two views comes perspective.
At 20, I wanted to be in the room.
At 40, I wanted a seat at the table.
At 62, I care much more about who’s sitting around it.
That’s progress.
Maybe that’s the whole lesson.
In the end, life isn’t measured by how long you hold the title.
It’s measured by what you did with it, whether you knew when to give it up, and who was still sitting at your table after it was gone.
Those are the people who matter.
Those are the years that count.
And that’s something I finally know.
