Sahil Bloom’s blog of July 17, 2026, reminded me a principle I’ve heard for years. He credits a “Dear Abby” response from 2000, but I’m pretty sure I heard it before that. No matter. Here’s the “Dear Abby” version:

January 19, 2000

​Dear Abby:

​I am a 36-year-old college dropout whose lifelong ambition was to be a physician. I have a very good job selling pharmaceutical supplies, but my heart is still in the practice of medicine. I do volunteer work at the local hospital on my time off, and people tell me I would have made a wonderful doctor.

​If I go back to college and get my degree, then go to medical school, do my internship and finally get into the actual practice of medicine, it will take me seven years! But, Abby, in seven years I will be 43 years old. What do you think?

​- Unfulfilled in Philly

​Dear Unfulfilled:

​And how old will you be in seven years if you don’t go to medical school?

Indeed. I may have encouraged June with that principle when she was considering whether to start a 3-year Spiritual Direction school when she was 75. “How old will you be in three years if you don’t go to Spiritual Direction school?”

Moses was 80 when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Harland Sanders began to franchise his chicken recipe after he was on Social Security. He sold the company when he was 73 years old for $2 million ($20+ million today).

A prayer of Moses, the Man of God, ends this way:

Let Your work appear to Your servants, And Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90.16, 17, NKJV)

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the LORD Shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and flourishing, To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. (Psalm 92.12 – 15, NKJV, emphasis mine)