There comes a point in life when you become increasingly aware of time.
Not necessarily because you are running out of it, but because you finally understand just how precious it is.
When we are young, life seems endless. There is always another year, another opportunity, another adventure waiting somewhere in the future.
One day I’ll travel.
One day I’ll write that book.
One day I’ll change my career.
One day I’ll move somewhere new.
One day I’ll do the thing I’ve always dreamed of doing.
And then, suddenly, you’re no longer twenty-five
Or thirty-five.
Or forty-five.
You look in the mirror and wonder how the years disappeared so quickly.
And that’s when one of the most dangerous thoughts can creep in:
Maybe I’m too old now.
You’re not.
You Are Not Too Old
You are not too old to change your life.
You are not too old to begin again.
You are not too old to travel somewhere you’ve always dreamed of visiting.
You are not too old to walk away from something that no longer makes you happy.
You are not too old to fall in love.
You are not too old to be single.
You are not too old to start a business, write a book, learn something new, climb a mountain, walk a Camino, move to another country or simply decide that the life you’ve been living isn’t the life you want anymore.
And perhaps most importantly, you are not too old to discover a completely different version of yourself.
We place so many imaginary deadlines on our lives.
We believe we should have figured everything out by thirty.
Established ourselves by forty.
Settled down by fifty.
And somewhere along the way, we’re supposed to become sensible.
But who made these rules.
Your Life Doesn’t Have to Follow a Timeline
Some people discover what they want at twenty.
Others discover it at sixty.
Some people marry their childhood sweetheart.
Others find the love of their life after decades of searching.
Some people know exactly what career they want from the moment they leave school.
Others wake up one morning in middle age and realise they can’t bear another day doing what they’ve always done.
There is no correct timeline.
There is only your timeline.
I’ve come to believe that some of the most interesting chapters of our lives begin after the chapters we once thought were supposed to be the important ones.
Because getting older brings something youth cannot give us.
Perspective.
You begin to understand what matters and, perhaps more importantly, what doesn’t.
You become less interested in impressing people.
You start questioning the rules you’ve been following.
You realise how much energy you’ve wasted worrying about things that never mattered.
And eventually, if you’re lucky, you arrive at one of life’s great revelations:
This is my life.
Not my parents’ life.
Not society’s life.
Not the life other people expected me to live.
You Still Have Time
Of course, none of us knows how much time we have.
That’s precisely why we shouldn’t waste the time we do have convincing ourselves that it’s too late.
Maybe you can’t do everything you could have done at twenty.
So what?
You aren’t twenty anymore.
You have something your younger self didn’t have: decades of experience, mistakes, heartbreaks, adventures, lessons and stories.
You know yourself better.
You know what you can survive.
You’ve probably already lived through days you once thought would break you.
And you’re still here.
There is enormous power in that.
Begin Where You Are
You don’t need to completely reinvent your life tomorrow.
Sometimes change begins quietly.~
Buy the train ticket
Take the class
Walk the first mile.
Write the first page.
Send the email.
Apply for the job.
Book the flight.
Plant the garden.
Learn the language.
Say yes,
Say no.
Do one small thing that tells the universe — and yourself — that you haven’t finished yet.
Because you haven’t.
There are still places you haven’t seen.
People you haven’t met.
Books you haven’t read.
Sunsets you haven’t watched.
Meals you haven’t tasted.
Songs you haven’t discovered.
Roads you haven’t walked.
There are versions of yourself you haven’t even met yet.
Imagine that.
Don’t Wait for Permission.
Perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts of getting older.
Eventually you realise that nobody is coming to give you permission.
Permission to change.
Permission to leave.
Permission to begin again.
Permission to live differently
Permission to be wildly, gloriously yourself.
You have to give that permission to yourself.
So if there’s something quietly calling you — something you’ve been putting off because you think you’re too old, too late or you’ve missed your chance — perhaps this is your reminder.
You haven’t missed your life.
You’re living it.
And while you’re still here, there is still another page to turn.
Another road to wander.
Another adventure waiting.
Another morning when you can wake up and decide to do things differently.
You are not too old and you still have time.
(c) Samantha Wilson. All Rights Reserved.
