No, You’re Not Too Old
As someone who trods a less than usual path in life, I’ve gotten The Look more times than I can count. With no desire for children, picket fences, or status, people often don’t know what to make of me. Sometimes The Look is a little bit of envy, but often confusion with a side of judgement.
I’m a firm believer that you should live the life that resonates with you (as long as it doesn’t harm anyone) — whatever that looks like. It makes no more sense for me to judge someone who lives a traditional life than for them to judge me. Each of us living our lives does no harm to the other.
For those that seem to feel more envy than judgement, I see the sting of regret in their eyes. They are usually closer to my age (40 ish), and often did take the traditional path. Perhaps they aren’t unhappy exactly, but didn’t do certain things because it wasn’t in line with said traditional path.
The thing is though, you’re never too old.
You can change your life’s path at any point. It needn’t be a total life overhaul either. You may have responsibilities and obligations, or parts of your current life you don’t want to abandon. Start small if you prefer, or if it’s the only realistic route.
What have you always wanted to do or try that you talked yourself out of a hundred (or thousand) times? Ignore the voice — whether in your head or from someone else — that scoffs. The one that says “who do you think you are? At YOUR age?!”
Maybe you can’t sell everything and traipse around the globe, but you sure can find ways to bring travel into your life. Even a short overnight trip to a nearby destination counts. You may not become fluent in that language you were always curious to learn, but you can try.
Neither total upheaval nor grand success is required to benefit from a course shift.
Novelty is good for us — emotionally and literally. Learning and experiencing new things has been shown over and over to have numerous benefits to the brain. From neuroplasticity to emotional regulation, our hearts and brains love novelty. Life is constantly shifting, changing, adapting — there’s no reason we shouldn’t do so right along with it.
The surge of confidence when you acquire a new skill works wonders.
Remember when you were a kid and you finally got the hang of something? Riding a bike, learning a backflip, finally understanding a challenging subject — we didn’t have to be perfect at it. Just being able to do it all, even a bit shakily, was worth celebrating.
Who cares what someone thinks? Who cares if you’re not the best at it or it doesn’t go perfectly? Learn, adapt, adjust. You may discover that you love pottery instead of painting. That you’re better at writing historical fiction instead of sci-fi fantasy. No one has every reached the end of their days and thought “I wish I’d tried fewer things, had fewer adventures”.
Moreover, don’t worry about whether you’re too old to do the thing.
You can be 50 and take a dance class, even if you’ve never danced a step in your life. Launch a new career after 20 years doing the same thing. For me, one (the list is not short) that gets A LOT of looks (and sometimes comments), is my late-discovered love of EDM.
For those that don’t know what that is, let me sum it up. EDM = Electronic Dance Music, which has many subgenres. It has become more mainstream in recent years, but the bulk of attendees at festivals/shows are under 25. I was introduced to “the scene” at 38 and fell hard. I dress up, I dance (out of rhythm mostly), and spend a not-tiny sum of money doing so.
I’ve seen people 10, 20, maybe 30 years my senior at these events too.
Not infrequently more crazily costumed or dancing even harder. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna stop something that brings great joy and fun to my life. Why would I anyway? Because it makes someone uncomfortable? They think it’s weird or immature? Pish-posh.
You could spend your days trying to satisfy others but we all know we can’t make others happy.
It’s a moving target. When not swathed in glitter and bass, I’m equally happy hiking solo, which also weirds a lot of people out. So it has nothing to with the acceptable-ness of a pursuit really. Certainly hiking would be considered “age appropriate”, if that were the real issue.
Too often the reality is, is that it confuses or scares them a to think of doing it themselves. Thus, it’s easier to brand you weird or (worse) “not acting your age”. It’s a type of projection, where they can’t imagine doing it for an assortment of not entirely logical reasons. Instead of reflecting on that (or even realizing it), they make it out that you’re somehow deficient, problematic.
Your life is your own and we only get one go-round.
As I said at the beginning, I’m certainly not advocating leaving others in the lurch to do a complete 180. Outside of that, do whatever the hell you want. Ignore the naysayers and try those things. You may be surprised to discover there are more than a few people just like you doing so.
