The knees creak, the hangovers last longer and apparently we’ve lost our rizz. A light-hearted look at getting older while trying — and spectacularly failing — to keep up with the language of the kids.
Changes
How does your mindset affect your financial success?
My mindset has probably had more influence on my financial success than I realised.
I’ve never been driven purely by money. I’ve always wanted to build something, work hard and provide a good life for my family, but as I’ve got older my definition of success has changed. I’m beginning to realise that having more isn’t necessarily the same as being better off.
These days I’m more patient and measured. I’m learning that pushing too hard isn’t always the answer—whether that’s in business, at the gym, or in life. Consistency and making sensible decisions over the long term are far more valuable than chasing quick results.
I also think being content with what I have changes the way I look at money. I don’t need to constantly spend to create happiness. A walk with the dog, noticing a view or a flower, enjoying time with family, or simply sitting doing nothing can be worth far more than something I could buy.
For me, financial success is becoming less about accumulating more, and more about having the freedom and security to enjoy the life I’ve worked for. Money is useful, but the real wealth is having the time, health and mindset to appreciate it.
Where You Rest
The bench where you linger
Has no longing for roses.
The light has already chosen
Its oldest and gentlest bloom.
The trees incline without knowing why;
Even the wind forgets its wandering
To gather the silence
That settles about your hands.
No gardener could improve this place.
The earth has remembered your footsteps
Long before they arrived,
And keeps their music beneath the moss.
Birdsong is only an echo
Of something your breathing began.
The ivy climbs for a better view,
The old stones soften with listening.
Only those who measure beauty
By petals that fade in a week
Would ask where the flowers have gone.
The wise see differently.
They know the garden flowers itself
Wherever you choose to be,
And that every season, however barren,
Waits quietly
For the grace of your presence.
Steve Halstead.
Talking Pug
If your pet could talk, what would be the first thing it says?
You know that look I give you? I’m actually judging you
peace and quiet
What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done when no one was watching?
Probably accepting that life doesn’t last forever, and that growing older means changing what we value.
Realising that I’m actually happy doing less. That pleasure can come from the most ordinary things — noticing a view, stopping to look at a flower, walking the dog, or simply sitting and doing nothing.
I suppose the bravest thing I’ve done when no one was watching was learning that I don’t always have to be doing something to feel that I’m living. Sometimes, just feeling content is enough.
P
The Spider’s World
Silver threads are drawn at dusk
Between the thorn and elder tree,
A little kingdom hung in air,
As still as any mystery.
Pale in the shadow, patient there,
The spider keeps its ancient art;
No bell is rung, no word is said,
Yet every trembling thread has heart.
In circles fine as winter frost
It binds the dark from bough to bough,
And waits for what the night may send,
As though it knew the hour somehow.
Down from the branch it softly falls,
A black bead swinging through the gloom;
Then climbs again its silver road
And takes its place within the loom.
Each step is light, each turning sure,
A dance no mortal hand has taught;
It walks the borders of its world
Between desire and death and thought.
Resting within the web’s still heart,
It feels what moves beyond our sight—
The moth, the rain, the wandering wind,
The smallest footfall of the night.
And when the moon is white on grass,
And all the fields are hushed and deep,
The web shines like a secret map
The stars have given earth to keep.
What seems so frail may hold a world,
What seems so small may govern fate;
For all night long the spider waits
Beside its silver gate.
And somewhere in that shining net,
Between the dark, the dew, the sky,
A little god of thread and patience
Waits for the world
to wander by.
Steve Halstead.
While They Sleep
When night has hushed the little rooms
And laid its hand upon the stair,
I sit beneath the darkened glass
And send my thoughts where you may fare.
My daughter, with the morning eyes,
So bright the day seems born in you,
May kindness never make you weak,
Nor sorrow teach your heart untrue.
The world will praise the loud and hard,
And dress its hungers up as gold;
Keep something wild beneath your ribs,
Some flame the years cannot make cold.
My son, who runs as rivers run,
As though no stone could turn your course,
May you grow strong without the need
To make a weapon of your force.
Learn when to stand and when to yield,
When pride is courage, when it lies;
And keep enough of boyhood still
To wonder at the evening skies.
I think of roads I cannot walk,
Of doors that I shall never see,
Of hands that may be kind or cruel
When you have travelled far from me.
A father teaches feet to rise,
Then watches where those footsteps go;
And every lesson given in love
Prepares the child to leave him so.
I cannot bind the winter wind,
Nor keep the rain from where you roam;
I cannot spare you every grief,
But I can keep a fire at home.
A lamp beside the darkened pane,
A door unlatched against the night,
A voice that speaks your name unchanged,
A hearth that keeps its little light.
And while you sleep I bear the fear
That daylight teaches me to hide;
Yet fear is only love made dark
When love can no longer stand beside.
One day the rooms will quieten more.
Your coats will vanish from the hall.
The years will carry you away
Beyond the reach of any call.
And I will watch you take the road,
Though every mile may wound me too,
And trust the strength I could not see
Was growing quietly in you.
For before the world had weighed your worth,
Or crowned you, praised you, passed you by,
You were the stars above my house,
The fire beneath my winter sky.
And whatever names the years may give,
Whatever distant lives you start,
You will remain, when all is still,
The oldest music in my heart.
Steve Halstead.
When The Lights Are Dim.
When the lights are dim
and the evening starts to brood,
I see you as you see me,
as if we always knew
that somewhere in the silence
we would meet again.
You are still beautiful—
those lovely eyes of smiling blue,
still holding something of the girl
I once believed I knew.
And maybe your heart heals faster
than my memory allows.
You found a way to leave me
long before I knew how.
But there’s a little thrill
when you see me passing by,
a flicker in your eyes
that you are never quick to hide.
So how am I supposed
to get through this again?
I caught every lie you told,
I remember where and when.
Yet every part of you
still lifts me from the ground,
and you were the first to know
the love I never said out loud.
Perhaps the bells are ringing now,
perhaps the wheels are turning,
and somewhere in another life
we’re both no longer hurting.
I tell myself I’ll be alright,
that time will have its way,
but you see me coming
every single time I turn away.
Your eyes discovered
only fragments of the things
I had hidden underneath
the weight of everything.
But I learned a lot about you—
more than you ever knew.
I learned that sometimes love remains
long after love is through.
And when the lights are dim,
and the evening starts to fall,
I wonder if you remember me
at all.
Steve Halstead.
Now, the Silence Echoes
Now, the silence echoes.
Not the gentle hush of sleep,
or the quiet of a library,
but a long hollow hum.
Bouncing off damp walls,
unused plates on the table,
the dust motes dancing alone in a sunbeam.
It’s the echo of laughter
that no longer fills the air,
the thud of footsteps
that now only exist in memory.
It’s the space left behind,
a shape carved out of sound,
a constant, aching reminder
of what was.
The ticking clock is a hammer,
each swing a pronouncement,
a judge delivering verdicts
of loss and emptiness.
The wind whispers secrets
through the windowpane,
but they are garbled,
unintelligible,
lost in the overwhelming
dissonance of quiet.
It is a heavy blanket,
smothering the small, brave sparks
of hope that flicker
in the corners of the soul.
Now, the silence echoes,
a constant, unwavering presence,
a testament to absence,
a monument to what is gone.
Steve Halstead.
A penny
What’s the best thing you’ve ever found randomly on the street?
When I was seven I picked a handful of sand up that had blown off the beach
Rubbed my hands together and was left with a penny
I walked across the street with my parents put the penny in a slot machine and won ten pennies
The Sacred Things.
Not by the forge where iron learned its song,
Nor by the wheel that drew the kingdoms wide,
But by the hidden fire on lonely hills
The generations kept the dark alive.
The horn was blown before the cock had stirred,
The old oak heard the names no child now knows;
Bare feet had worn a holiness in grass
Where every wind remembered vanished gods.
The merchant weighed the silver of the earth,
The builder lifted towers to the sun;
Yet all their shining victories grew pale
Before one widow blessing broken bread.
For there are kingdoms fashioned out of smoke,
And crowns no smith has ever learned to cast;
A mother’s whispered prayer beside the hearth,
The turning of the year by sacred flame,
The old men lifting songs against the stars—
These are the pillars time has never felled.
The world believes that history walks with gold,
That kingdoms bloom where restless markets rise;
Yet every empire, clothed in splendid dust,
Has drifted like the thistledown of autumn.
Still, underneath the black roots of the years,
The elder spirits keep their silent feast.
They ask no tribute from the busy world,
Only remembrance.
For when the mills are ivy,
When iron sleeps beneath forgotten rain,
The child shall find, beside an ancient well,
A song older than sorrow, older than kings,
And know at last
That men are gathered into one people
Not by the wealth they leave behind,
But by the sacred things
They could not bear to lose.
Steve Halstead.
The Yorkshire Poet & Friends 