This is what thirty-two looks like.  For a long time, a significant part of our lives revolved around that number.

Why thirty-two?  To complete a bachelor’s degree generally (but far from always) requires four years of college or eight semesters. That’s eight tuition payments. (I’m defining tuition broadly to include room, board, and all other college related expenses.)   Multiplied by four, the number of kids in our family, equals thirty-two. 

Our youngest daughter is a second-semester senior at the University of Wisconsin.  This week my wife and I cut our final tuition check – number thirty-two.  We are officially done paying for college!

As an aside, I could talk about the relative return on investment a parent should expect from a pending graduate determined to milk the last days of college for all their worth before joining the “real world,” but that’s beside the point.

For most people, saving for college requires enormous sacrifice over a long period. Next to buying a home, college tuition is often a family’s single biggest expense.  Tuition at some private schools is approaching $100 grand a year.  It’s nuts.    

Saving for college is a big reason parents go to work every day and put up with all the crap that can come with the job.  Between 529s, financial aid, scholarships, student loans, millions of parents and young people are forced to run a gauntlet of challenging decisions to figure out how to pay for it. 

But I’m not here today to bemoan the high costs of a college education.  This is about celebrating milestones and enjoying the moment.

To be honest, it’s not something I’ve done enough over the years, especially at work.  When the wins came, I almost immediately started thinking about the next thing: the new project, goal or opportunity to take on.

I’m far from alone, many friends and colleagues are the same way. My guess is if you surveyed leaders across corporate America they would tell you that celebrating success is not something they or their companies do well.

In one sense, persistent ambition to constantly grow and improve has fueled America’s unmatched track record of innovation and prosperity.  A passion and drive to work, hustle, and achieve makes for fulfilling careers.

Ambition is all about the future, creating an outcome that doesn’t exist yet.  It’s how we make tomorrow better.  The downside, however, is if one spends all their time thinking about the future, it’s near impossible to find satisfaction in the present.

For peak years professionals, a heightened awareness of the passage of time is very real.  We have less of it to pursue our goals than someone twenty years younger.  But hopefully with age comes wisdom and a recognition that regardless of how old you are, the future is promised to no one. 

Rather than just rush to the next thing, how much better would it be for ourselves and the people we work with if we took more time to celebrate the wins?  It’s a small thing when you think about it.  Not much is required, but the positive impact on ourselves and our work cultures would be enormous.

That’s why I’m going to revel in thirty-two for a while…and try not to think about how much weddings cost these days.