Where did you get your ideas about what it means to get older?
Are they serving you?
Too late
I have this vivid memory: I’m in middle school, that time when being cool becomes so intensely important. I get a too-short haircut I hate. I worry about how long it will take to grow my hair back out, because what if it’s too late? Because, you know, old ladies can’t have long hair and what if I’m, like, almost 20?
We’ll sidestep the notion that I vastly overestimated how long it takes to grow out a bad haircut. What’s striking is that by adolescence, I already had a strong sense of “too late.”
As a result, I felt like life was a race. Hurry up to the next job, next accomplishment, next phase. When my ex-fiance broke up with me in my 20s, one of my immediate fears was turning 30 and not being married yet.
Does this sound familiar? Have you felt like you were in a race against time?
I think it’s wise to realize our time on earth is precious. But there’s a difference between that and letting time keep you from living your life.
Live all the years you’re given
Our late neighbor, Charles, offered an insight that’s become part of our household lexicon: Your 40s, your 50s and your 60s are your prime of life.
Julia Child was 49 when her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published, and America got to know her via her iconic TV show after that.
It wasn’t until after Frank McCourt retired from three decades of teaching high school that he wrote “Angela’s Ashes,” his heartbreaking and funny memoir that won the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize. He was 66 when it was published.
But why stop there?
Our friend Shelley Wininger just turned 70 last month, and she says she’s having so much more fun now than in her 20s and 30s. (Here’s a story I wrote about Shelley and her husband, Charley, when his book on MDMA came out.)
Even better: One of John’s childhood heroes, MAD magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee, turned 100 in March … and he only stopped drawing fold-ins last year! We’ve been lucky to get to know Al and his wife, Joyce, and when I asked Al several years ago if he had any thoughts of retirement, Joyce guffawed. Drawing was the reason he was still alive, she insisted.
Is it time for your next act?
I asked my Facebook friends to share their “better late than never” stories.
One had always wanted to learn to ride a horse, so at 40, she began as an absolute beginner.
Another realized in her mid-50s how much she loved backstage theater, and found a community theater company where she could be stage manager.
One friend took up dance as a beginner in her 40s, and another started guitar.
I began piano lessons shortly before I turned 40.
And for my 50th birthday last month, my Coney Island Mermaid Parade dance troupe bought me my first pair of quad roller skates since middle school!
(BTW, I didn’t start dancing in the mermaid parade until my 40s, either)
Can you see that the wheels light up on these silver sparkly skates?
I see too many people growing older like they’re living in death’s waiting room. They stop trying new things, they let their worlds get smaller and smaller.
Many of my coaching clients come to me when the path they were on no longer feels fulfilling. They want to listen to that voice that tells them, “The clock is ticking, don’t waste your precious remaining time on earth when life could be so much more.”
That could mean making a career shift, but it could also mean picking up a new hobby that brings you joy. It could mean rebalancing your priorities. It could mean kicking down the doors of “too late.”
Have you told yourself it’s too late to pursue your dreams?
I probably can’t help you become a professional athlete at 60 or become an astronaut if you’re afraid of heights, but no matter how big or small, we can explore your desires and help you live all your remaining days fully.