forty-nine, Andy Morozovsky at age fifty-nine. All four of them were what social psychologists Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield call “9-enders,” people in the last year of a life decade. They each pushed themselves to do something at ages twenty-nine, thirty-nine, forty-nine, and fifty-nine that they didn’t do, didn’t even consider, at ages twenty-eight, thirty-eight, forty-eight, and fifty-eight. Reaching the end of a decade somehow rattled their thinking and redirected their actions. Endings have that effect. Like beginnings and midpoints, endings quietly steer what we do and how we do it.
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