“It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.” – Mitch Albom
February is my birthday month. Although birthdays take on a different meaning as we get older (i.e., it’s no longer about being able to do more things now that you’re a year older but rather hoping you can continue doing the same things now that you’re a year older!), I still rather enjoy my birthday.
I will be forty-eight this year—two years shy of fifty, but I’m not going to think about that right now. The thing I like about getting older is having more experience. Not necessarily experience in a certain academic field or professional endeavor (although hopefully I gain that, too), but just experience with being alive. After forty-eight years, I know who I am and I'm comfortable in my own skin. It's worth getting older to be able to say that.
My husband likes to motivate our girls by reminding them that they only have one life to live and they need to make the most of the time they have by getting out there, figuring out what they want to do, and doing it. It’s good advice--after all, there are countless examples of young people accomplishing great things. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Mary Shelley published Frankenstein at age 20. Louis Braille was 15 when he invented Braille. Mozart wrote his first symphony at age 8.
However, as someone who is well past thirty (and forty), I don’t like thinking that I’m past the age of doing something remarkable. So, I looked up some other statistics to help me feel better about myself and my “ripe old age” (I mean, that’s what statistics are for, right?):
- Julia Child didn’t find her passion for cooking until she was in her forties, and she was 51 when she started her PBS show “The French Chef.”
- Mahatma Gandhi protested the British imposition of a salt tax in India by leading the Salt March to Dandi when he was 61.
- Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, when she was 64 years old.
- Colonel Sanders was 65 when he started his chain of fast-food stores, Kentucky Fried Chicken.
- Bob Ross taught himself how to paint at age 41.
There’s still time for me. There’s still time for you, too, no matter how old you are. Seek your passion. Set your goals. Take steps to achieve them. Sometimes a small step is all you can take, depending on what else is going on in your life, but even small steps move you forward. And if you keep moving forward, you'll get there eventually.
- Kathryn Amurra