Ten years ago, when I turned 40, my father posted a birthday message on my Facebook page that was visible to all of my friends and followers. I had a great life, he said: a loving wife, three beautiful children, a successful career. But all men’s lives fall apart at this age, he warned. He was 73 then, and was thinking of his own life and of his father’s. There is too much pressure and there are too many temptations, he said. He had entered a spiral at 40 from which he never recovered. He hoped the same would not happen to me.
I read the post, puzzled. It was a private note in a very public place. I responded with humor and deflection, but it made me realize something. My father’s old friends always said that I remind them of him. I had spent much of my life trying to be like him: going t