Ah, if only we were young again and had a chance to do it all over again, right?  Wrong!

Conventional wisdom says that the younger you are, the more time you have to build wealth and to recover from economic downturns and financial mistakes.  While this is true, there are many advantages to being older and wiser.

1. For starters, you are wiser.  Have you made financial mistakes in the past?  Well, good.  You don’t need to make those mistakes again.  If you were twenty, you wouldn’t have those lessons under your belt, and you’d probably make those mistakes.  The trick is to learn from those mistakes so that you don’t repeat them.

2. You probably have more time than you think. For some reason, we’ve come to think of our 40’s and 50’s as the decades in which we finalize our accumulations of wealth in preparation for retirement.  We’re supposed to be at the top of our careers.  And while this is true for many, it’s not true for many more.  If you’re committed to a healthy lifestyle, there’s no way to tell how many productive decades you have left.  (On the other hand, don’t wait too much longer to get started.)

3. You have that credibility that comes with being “seasoned.” You’ve been there, you’ve seen it, you’ve tried it.  You have a vast array of experience to draw from.  You’ve read more books.  You’ve had more conversations.  And whether or not the previous four sentences are actually true, people will assume that they are.

4. There are more mentors and trailblazers than there were 20 years ago. If you’re in your 40’s, this is good news.  One reason for this is simply numbers – – the Baby Boomers are in their 50’s and 60’s.  Therefore, it’s statistically more likely that someone out there has achieved what you would like to achieve.  The Baby Boomer generation is changing our perceptions about what it means to age.  Many of them have built their fortunes during the second half of their lives – – and then went on to write books or teach seminars about it.

5. Perhaps the most significant truth on this list is that the older you are, the more you appreciate the value of time. When you were in your 20’s, if you were like most of us were, your entire life stretched out before you in what seemed to be infinity.  It seemed fine to sit in front of the television for hours, because there was always tomorrow for chasing dreams.  But today, you understand the significance of a year, or a day, or even an hour.

It’s tempting to slip into thinking about the past, regretting our mistakes and missed opportunities.  But all we can do today is choose whether or not to learn from the past.  It’s far more productive to embrace who we are today and work to ensure the future is how we want it.