My favorite people to be around, outside of family and friends, happen to be at the extreme ends of the age spectrum. I am a fan of babies, kids, and the elderly. There is a funny thing about both ends: neither seems to have a care in the world. Kids are full of energy, curiosity, and unhampered honesty. They ask genuine questions without worrying about being politically correct. They simply say what is on their mind.

I remember a friend of mine brought his daughter to my office when he visited. She was about five or six. While her dad was talking to my business partner, she got my attention.

She whispered, “Hey. Hey.”

Standing 6’4“ and weighing about 395 lbs at the time, I towered over her like the Sears Tower next to a ranch-style starter home. The contrast in our size was comical.

“Hey,” she said again.

“Yes, ma’am?”

Her eyes looked straight up at me, her finger doing the “come here” motion. She was gesturing for me to come down to her level. “I have something to tell you.”

“What’s up, little one?”

“You’re fat.”

She said it with the courage of a World War II fighter pilot. Zero fear.

Her dad heard her. He knew his daughter, and he knew she was going to say something wild. Even though he was in a different conversation, he tried to stop the runaway train, but he was too late—he could only hit pause.

I laughed it off and turned to head back into my personal office, but she wasn’t done. She marched right behind me, climbed up into the guest chair across from my desk, and sat there waiting. I looked up and smiled with an expression that said, Whatchu want, little girl?

She understood the look perfectly because she immediately went into sharing the tea.

“My sister got in trouble today.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yep. She was kissing her friend at school. And she’s going to get it when we get home.”

She continued on, pouring out every detail she knew. I just sat there and laughed. It was like she couldn’t wait to tell somebody—anybody—about her sister’s issues.

The funny thing is, when this little girl becomes an elderly woman, she will do the exact same thing. She will definitely tell someone they’re fat, and she will gossip about her sister to whomever she can. I can see it now—she will be just as fearless at 85 as she was at 5.

That is what I like. Kids and elderly folks are the spice that life needs to keep from falling into the boredom of chasing money. Kids don’t know what to worry about, and for the elderly, nothing is worth worrying about. That is freedom.

But between those two bookends? The Middle.

The Middle seems to be bound. Bound by debt, by bills, by expectations, by the constant need to matter. They want to matter to a bunch of people who don’t even know they exist. Imagine chasing all of your life, only to find out that what you are chasing cannot fill the void you’ve been trying to close. It is actually sad.

I had a conversation recently that proved my point.

“Hey brother, how you doing?” a middle-aged man asked me.

“Great,” I said. “I’m breathing.”

He replied, “Well, breathing by itself doesn’t mean you are doing good. It’s breathing and having a good quality of life.”

I told him, “Breathing is a good quality of life, because the alternative is deadly.”

The way this gentleman thought is exactly why the Middle is so tough for me to hang with.

It seems like nothing is ever enough. Not even the air in our lungs.