According to professor David W. Galenson there's hope for us old guys who still want to make a contribution to society. I was listening to Dr. Galenson's lecture at an event where an organization called Civic Ventures was awarding The Purpose Prise to a group of baby-boomers who, unlike me, were taking on society's biggest challenges. It was inspiring. One of Galenson's insights that I thought was particularly interesting was this idea of two fundamentally different approaches to innovation; one the deductive "flash of brilliance" sort and the other the painstaking, gradual, cumulative, inductive sort that comes with the wisdom of a lifetime experience. He speaks of those of us in the later category feeling "stupid" in their youth at not being easily able to learn by the deductive method. This was my experience exactly and its somehow very encouraging to learn that I'm not alone.
My wife Joy and I celebrated our 40 th wedding anniversary this past weekend with our children and grand-children. We were on lovely Sea Island, Georgia watching this spectacular sunrise and wondering how it was possible that forty years could have gone by so quickly. We had a lot of fun telling all the old stories about how we met, and courted, and married, and brought up the kids. Lots of laughs and a few tears as well. We've been through good times and bad together. We've both worked hard, had a few disappointments, but basically have accomplished mostly good things. We've had good health, loving families, good friends, three fine sons we're very proud of, wonderful daughter's-in-law who are perfect for our boys, and four of the best grandchildren ever. Life doesn't really get any better than that. We've really been blessed and we thank God for that. Now we're working to keep our health and live to celebrate forty more.
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