Okay, I’ll admit it. I groaned at 49 and a half when I found my AARP membership card in the mail just two years before I joined Airbnb. AARP, Airbnb. They sound a lot alike, but they couldn’t be more different.

Historically, society has been very clear about expiration dates for certain professions.

Growth requires death: old ideas, old branches, anything that needs composting and regeneration. It is that cycle of life and death that makes a forest feel so fresh and alive.

Most ancient religious traditions offer rituals that can help you imagine death before you have your turn. I also believe that some of the current psychedelic fascinations may be partly due to this desire to experience "el otro lado" (the other side).

Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and the Google founders all had the same mentor, the late Bill Campbell, who was taken too early, as chronicled in a book called "Trillion Dollar Coach." And then you find Jobs mentoring Mark Zuckerberg, and Zuck mentoring Brian Chesky, all in a pay it forward, Silicon Valley ecosystem kind of way.

If you picture a mature Nancy Drew married to one of the Hardy Boys for decades, then you will have a mental image of the Sleuthing Silvers, a fictional Baby Boomer detective couple.

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it’s been given to us in generous measure for accomplishing the greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and careless living, and when it’s spent on no worthwhile pursuit, death finally presses on and we realize that the life of which we didn’t notice has passed away.” - Seneca

I was sitting in the Green Room with filmmaker James Cameron ("The Terminator," "Titanic," "Aliens," etc.…), who was about to go on stage before me. He seemed calm and light-hearted. I was anything but.

My eldest child, Vaughn, was eight months old when I needed to return to work. Those first few weeks of dropping him off were so stressful. He’d bawl as I was leaving and I’d worry about the long-term emotional damage I was causing him. Fortunately, I had a wise support network.

I’m thinking of beauty and artistry, in its many forms, and how the simplest things that inform our soul, mind, and mind’s eye when there is space and presence to do so.