With Age Comes Wisdom: The Stages of Life by Thad Angelloz

“With age comes wisdom.”

This quote, attributed to Oscar Wilde has a second part to it, but for the purposes of this column I
will just stick with the first portion of it.

Before I press forward let me preface what is to come by saying I do not claim to be any sort of
life guru.

Rather, I am a normal man who has seen and experienced enough things to have developed a few
opinions I think are relatively spot on.

The main one is life does not follow a straight path no matter who you are.

I mean think about it if I told you to draw out your life on a piece of paper, I guarantee no one
would choose to draw a straight line.

The path of any person is one filled with many twists and turns.

Life is wholly unpredictable with little in the way of predictable outcomes on a daily, let alone
weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

Take myself for example.

If I talked to my toddler self and told him he’d eventually have a wife, four kids, two dogs, and
the world would never figure out how to put a simple cloth handle or two on a mattress to help
move it more effectively, I’d tell you you were crazy!

Here recently as I close in on turning 45 this month, I started to take an inventory on my life to
this point.

And yes, this is as scary as it seems.

What prompted this was a chance meeting with an older gentleman who I used to see in church
with his family.

At the time, I was in my early 20s, recently married and without kids.

This man on the other hand had two children in their tween to teen years.

Fast forward to 2025, this same man who was in early to mid-40s is now in his 60s, retired and
has grandchildren.

What seemed so far in the future has now become my present reality.

My kids are growing older, and I am progressing through the stages of life.

I have a son on the cusp of being 19, a 17-year-old daughter, and twin 9-year-old boys.

When I was 9, my dad was 45 just like me.

To me, he seemed old, so by that logic I wonder if my youngest sees me as being old?

The questions are endless, but the truth is I am firmly rooted in my middle years of life.

I am not 100 percent sure where I heard this, but it is one of the better descriptions of how to
look at the stages of life.

The thought is your life if divided into quarters.

So, based on an average 80-year lifespan, your first quarter or your first 20 years are those years
where your needs are met by someone else.

Typically, in those first 20 years no one has started a career, had kids, etc.

Between the ages of 20 to 40, life starts in earnest and with it comes work and kids, etc.

The second after you turn 40, you enter the downhill decent of life where every minute, hour and
year takes you closer to the end of your journey here on Earth.

In this context, I have now played a few minutes into the third quarter and am looking forward to
seeing what comes next.

Thankfully, I have seen a preview of the script from others who have come before me, but still it
seems odd to believe that I am moving closer and closer to possibly becoming a grandparent and
retiree sooner rather than later.

As I sit here and try to provide you with some ramblings you might find interesting to read, I
understand that the stages of life are different for all of us.

We all traverse these stages, but find ourselves in different quarters.

Another saying that seems appropriate to point out before closing out this column is: Life is
short!

Indeed, it is!

As to not scare anyone, by all indication I am perfectly fine and plan on being here all four
quarters of my life – lol!