Best By Date?

MYTH#4: I AM TOO OLD OR IT IS TOO LATE...

“I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

How many times have you limited the options or possibilities in your life because of this societal meme? Have you closed the door on a dream, hope, skill or aspiration by believing the all too common, I’m too old or it is too late myth? There is no timeline on your ability to experience life and all that can mean to you and there are very few things that are truly out of your grasp because of age. Many people have challenged this myth and have contributed to society in profound, meaningful and inspirational ways. They have confronted the limiting beliefs and self-imposed hurdles and redefined age as a measurement of time, rather than a measurement of ability.

LONG LIVE “OLDER”

• Frank McCourt who wrote the bestseller "Angela's Ashes" began to write in his sixties.

• Oscar Swahn remarkably won his first Olympic gold medal at the age of 60 then competed in two further Olympic Games.

• Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book at the age of 65

• Judy Brenner, 70 years old, who had recently run the Boston Marathon, chased a teenage shoplifter 100 feet and helped hold him until police arrived.

• Cancer survivor Barbara Hillary, 75, became one of the oldest people, and the first black woman, to reach the North Pole.

• Grandma Moses started painting at 77.

• Paul Newman was 80 when he earned an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie for "Empire Falls" in 2005.

• Bill Painter was 81 and became the oldest person to reach the 14,411-foot summit of Mount Rainier.

• Barbara McClintock was 81 when she won the Nobel Prize in "Physiology or Medicine" for the discovery of genetic transposition.

• Michelangelo was 88 when he created the architectural plans for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

• Hulda Crooks climbed Mt. Whitney at the age of 91.

• Allan Stewart of New South Wales was 91 when he completed a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of New England. He said he finished what would have normally been a six-year degree in four and a half years "because of my age."

• Nola (Hill) Ochs became a Guinness World Record holder as the world's oldest college graduate at 95-year old. She earned a general studies degree with an emphasis in history, graduating alongside her granddaughter who was 21 years old at the time.

• Fauja Singh ran the Toronto Waterfront Marathon just this year, at the age of 100.

“I don't believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.” - T. S. Eliot

AM I TOO OLD?

So, when is too old? Are things different for you when you are forty instead of fifty or fifty instead of sixty and so on? Absolutely and that is great! Is age not just a matter of perspective? I have heard a twenty-five year old say they were too old to take swimming lessons because “everyone learns when they are a kid.” To a fifty year old he is a kid! A thirty year old once told me, "it is too late to go back to school because all my friends graduated when they were in there twenties" and a forty year old say, "I am too old to learn to play soccer because I did not play when I was younger." There will be different challenges at different ages, but there is also a fairly intense knowledge of the fragility and movement of life that can be extremely motivating; a yearning born out of the acumen of life lived and time passed. Time is needed to foster skills and to provide experience and what, by the numbers appears too old, is literally a maturing to the fullness of possibility. It is not too late to live your life! Is there something you have always wanted to do that you have avoided pursuing? If you are really honest, you will see that the meme, “I am too old or it is too late”, is really just a cover for fear of the unknown, looking foolish or failing or an uncertainty of where to start. The right time for you may need to be plotted and planned to coincide with the responsibilities and commitments you currently have. Although we live in a world organized by numbers and time and stages; age really is just a number. Respect your age and the value of stages, but do not be confined by limiting beliefs that thwart your passions and purpose.

COME OF AGE

Come of age means, “to develop completely.” That is what you are trying to do; to develop all your innate skills and strengths and to express them in the world, share them with your community, to be the best of yourself. There is no age limit on that! Come of age by expressing all that you have learned and acquired over time thus far and use it to propel you to continue to live your life On Purpose.

CHALLENGE THE MYTH

If you did not know how old you are, what would you do? What would you learn to do? What would you try? What could the benefit of experience, wisdom and perseverance push you to do, here and now? Where you hear yourself saying, "I am too old or it is too late," look for the information contained in that myth. Do you really want to have that goal? Are you beating yourself up with regret? If you do want to make that a goal, what can you begin doing today to create that? Have you been limiting yourself because of a preconceived, Best By Date?

If you would like to challenge this myth, please contact me at, onpurposelifecoaching@hotmail.com

"We don't stop playing because we grow older; we grow older because we stop playing" - George Bernard Shaw