It's never too late to begin again

I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we talk about age — and more specifically, the way we use it as an excuse.

Have you ever had the thought: “I’m too old to start that now” or “That’s for younger people?” 

We say it about all kinds of things - about love, about travel, about technology, and about trying something completely new. And sometimes, we don’t even say it out loud — it just sits there in the back of our minds, quietly making decisions for us.

I've certainly heard it many times from older artists, who categorically declare that it's far too late to take painting seriously.

But then I read this article about a woman who became a dancer at 68 years old.

Now at 82, she is putting on her first solo show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. If you don’t know, the Fringe is not some gentle afternoon tea party. It’s a wild, exhausting, exhilarating whirlwind of performances, pop-up venues, self-promotion, and pure creative chaos. Artists do everything themselves - they design thwir own shows, find a venue, organise promotion and then put on the performances.

The festival takes stamina, creativity, and persistence and it's widely thought of as something younger artists do. And here is Christine, doing it in her eighties.

In the article she is quoted as saying that she is doing "all the things I shouldn't be doing."

It made me wonder — how many of us are letting “too old” quietly take our place in the driver’s seat?

I think the deeper issue isn’t age at all. It’s that we forget life is still happening — right now — and we stop letting ourselves be shaped and fed by it. We forget that our inner life still has places to grow. That we still have more firsts ahead of us, if only we’ll let them happen.

When we lose touch with that, our creativity starts to wither a little. Not because we can’t make art anymore, but because we stop noticing. We stop letting the world in. And art — whether you paint it, dance it, write it, or live it — only thrives when you’re letting life in.

It’s easy to look at other artists and decide that, because they started young, there's no chance for you. But just think how much you deny yourself when you do that? 

It's easy to decide that the time to begin was years ago, and so now it’s too late. But here’s the truth: the only wrong time to start is never. You can write your first song at 40. Learn to paint at 57. Get on a stage for the first time at 82. And if anyone asks, you can just smile and tell them, “I was busy before, but I’m here now.”

Because the real limitation is never age. It’s whether you believe you’re allowed to begin.

So here's the question I have for you this week ... are you letting limiting ideas stop you from doing something?

Don't limit yourself to age when you answer this question because you may have a different excuse. And that's what this is - it's an excuse. 

"I'm too old to learn new technology" gives you an excuse not to struggle with learning something new, the way the rest of us do. 

"I'm too old to travel" gives you an excuse to avoid the discomfort we all experience when we go somewhere new.

And "I'm too old to take painting seriously" gives you an excuse not to work hard at learning.

Excuses are fine if you want to limit yourself, but I suspect if you're reading this, you want more. Christine didn't give herself any excuses - she got to work learning to dance and now, maybe even as I write this, she is dancing her first ever solo show at the age of 82 :)