> So, if you're in my boat, or you were, tell me:
> are these the best years?
>
> Hoping someday I'll learn to be shorter-winded, but it's not likely,
> Chris

For me this says it all about the virtues of each period of your life, and how they can override the downpoints if you know that this too shall pass:

Subject: The Best of Andy Rooney
From the "60 Minutes" guy:
Reverse Life Cycle:
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough.
It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death.
What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should
die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You
get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you got to work.
You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.
You {...}party, you get
ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play,
you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the
womb, you spend your last nine months floating...you finish off as a gleam.
Sounds great doesnt it? the pay off to the way time's arrow really runs though is the wisdom of experience you get from doing it the other way round, and the benefit to others that comes from that (like what we get from Howard).

Pres(OK, I'm in my 30's, we've got plenty of self-confessed teens/ 20's / 60's out there, time for you other middle aged folk to 'fess up)Gram

PS the aging process will inexorably make you shorter-winded, particularly if you give up exercise and particularly if you smoke.