The Birthday Math Nobody Does

The high school auditorium was dark, loud, and filling fast with families and rising ninth graders. Halfway through the presentation a teacher handed out a four-year course plan, and that’s when the math started. 

For the next two hours, my son and I would get a glimpse of what his next four years might look like, though the numbers I’d walk away with had nothing to do with course credits.

Before we sat down, we toured the gymnasium filled with rows of tables for athletics and clubs that linked the walls. There were sign-up sheets, smiling seniors and even the talk of leadership starting freshman year. The hallways had that particular energy of a place trying to sell itself to people who don’t yet know what they need.

As we moved through a few smaller classrooms after the auditorium, some standing room only, others with open seats, the message delivered to my son stayed consistent. This was going to be a lot different than middle school.

After the open house, we went across the street to talk through course selection over ice cream. We ordered our usual and found an empty booth in the back of the restaurant. I could see he was still processing everything he’d heard.

The questions came slowly. He wasn’t asking about AP courses or which electives would look best on a transcript. He was mostly curious about how I navigated high school almost thirty years ago. What was it like and whether I knew what I wanted.

He was entering a different era and I knew it. AP classes starting freshman year, college preparation before you’ve even learned the buildings. More competition, more expectations, and less room to figure things out at your own pace than I had thirty years ago.

I was trying to be honest with him without adding weight to a Thursday night ice cream run. I’m still not sure I got that balance right.

During one of the sessions, a teacher walked through the full course timeline, year by year, all four of them laid out on a single handout. I looked down at it and started doing the math without meaning to.

Four years. That’s it, four years and he’s gone.

I didn’t say it out loud. But it stayed in the back of my mind the rest of the evening.

The next morning, I gave my wife the debrief at the kitchen table while we talked through his class options. Somewhere in the middle of it I said, almost to myself, “Can you believe in four years he’ll be out of the house.”

She looked as stunned as I felt.

Over the next few days, I kept coming back to it. Four years sounds like a long time until you start counting what fits inside it. Two Olympics. A presidential election. A World Cup, which my son would insist belongs on that list, and somewhere in there, a version of my own life I haven’t finished deciding on yet.

But most of you already know how this math works. It moves faster than you think it will.

I started thinking about what my life might actually look like four years from now. What I’d still be building, what I’d have finally let go of, and whether the things claiming my time right now would even make the list.

What am I carrying right now that won’t matter much by the time he leaves?

The open house became an internal audit I hadn’t scheduled. I started looking at commitments I’d made three or four years ago that were still filling my calendar each week. When I tried to explain to myself why I was still holding some of them, I couldn’t come up with a clean answer. Some of it was out of habit and probably reputation. And some of it was a hard conversation I’d been rescheduling for longer than I wanted to admit.

If I don’t adjust them now, they will quietly take the next four years too. I’m pretty sure that was the part I didn’t want to sit with.

Most people hit this kind of realization sideways. A birthday, someone else’s milestone, or even a handout in a high school classroom on a Thursday night. You’re never really ready for it.

It isn’t really about age either. It’s about noticing that time has been moving while you were busy managing the week in front of you. And once you see it, you can’t pretend you didn’t.

Four years is enough time to build something meaningful. It’s also enough time to keep saying yes to things you stopped believing in a long time ago.

The difference is whether you decide on purpose.

If you want a place to start, take ten minutes this week. Write down three commitments that have been on your plate for two years or more. Next to each one, write one sentence explaining why you’re still doing it. If the sentence doesn’t come easily, that’s the answer.

As we submitted the course registration wish list, my son reminded me he had absolutely no idea what he wanted to do with his life. I smiled and told him that was okay. He’d figure it out.

I was well into my late twenties before I had any real clarity on that question. And honestly, with a birthday coming up, I’m not sure the answer ever stops moving.

What are you four years into right now that you would not choose again today?

If you want to, reply and tell me. One sentence is fine.

He’s got time. So do I, I think. 

I just don’t want to spend it accidentally.

Until next time.