Day 287: It’s Not Too Late
Being afraid of being judged or failing can be debilitating.
No matter how much you want something, fear can stop you before you even start.
As the decades pass, we can also wonder if our time has passed.
These people will inspire you not to give up.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, a farm wife who had lost much of her financial security, started writing later in life and published her first book, Little House in the Big Woods, at 65.
Grandma Moses had been a housekeeper, and although she suffered from debilitating arthritis in her 70s, after her husband died, she took up painting at 78, and within a few years her art was a global phenomenon.
At 58, Louise Hay self-published You Can Heal Your Life, which had started as a free 12-page pamphlet 8 years earlier. And she founded Hay House to market it. By the time she passed at 90, that book had sold 50 million copies, and Hay House was said to be generating over $100 million a year.
They all had their backs against the wall. No money, older women at a time when their ages were considered well past their prime. Louise said she bounced through a few credit cards to get her company started.
But they all followed the intuition of doing something that came from deep inside them.
Instead of saying, "That's just silly, there's no money in that!", they did it anyway.
It isn't hard to imagine what people may have said to women like that.
All of them probably had people around them telling them not to do it. They needed to get serious about how they were going to take care of themselves. Not some ridiculous ideas of writing about when you were a kid or an old woman taking up painting.
And you certainly couldn't build anything by printing and giving away a 12-page pamphlet for 8 years and then deciding to turn it into a book that nobody wanted to publish.
Can you imagine what people must have told her when she self-published and then spent money she didn't have to start a publishing company?
And yet they all, and so many others too, did it anyway.
We are never too old. It's never too late.
That's the part we forget when fear gets loud.
The thing inside us doesn't care how old we are. It doesn't care whether the timing looks practical to other people. It doesn't care whether the world has already decided what a woman our age is supposed to do.
It just keeps knocking.
Yesterday I created something with Claude where if I have an idea, I can open Claude on my phone and tell it my idea, and Claude will post it in a Notion spreadsheet for me. Claude will categorize it and mark it as now, sometime, or later, depending on where the idea belongs.
The point being, in a few minutes I built something that means I won't ever again wonder where I wrote down that idea I had 3 minutes, or 3 months, or 3 years ago.
I'm not too old to learn how to do new things at 70.
In fact, I've said I can't imagine not continuing to do this for the rest of my life. Why would I stop doing what I love and helping people just because I'm now supposed to be retired?
I tried that, and it was terrible, back in 2011 when I closed my business after moving back to Cabo. And by 2014 I started Ageless Lifestyle after 50, as a blog to give people information they were telling me they couldn't find anywhere at the time.
We feel compelled to do what makes us, us.
That feeling, that drive, should never be denied. It's our true essence.
And age should never be a barrier to fulfilling our destiny. Neither should being realistic, or any of the other reasons people in our lives give us for not doing what makes us happy.
They may say they don't want to see you putting time and effort into something that's going nowhere, but look at the examples here.
Their greatness would have died inside them if they hadn't done it despite what people said.
Do you believe the general consensus on any of those projects was, "Great idea, you should definitely do that. I see great things ahead for you." More likely, it was the opposite of that.
But they didn't let it stop them.
They understood that failure is a judgment, an opinion. It's just information. It shows you what doesn't work so you can course correct.
I often think of this quote in situations where things appear to be difficult or even impossible, just too hard to tackle.
Fear knocked at the door. Love answered and no one was there.
I love that so much. It's so simple and so true.
Fear can be loud before we begin.
It can tell us we're too old, too late, too unrealistic, too behind, too unknown, too tired, too unqualified, too foolish to try.
But love answers differently.
Love says, "This is still in you for a reason."
Love says, "Your age is not evidence that your time has passed."
Love says, "What you have lived may be exactly what prepared you."
That is the part I want us to remember.
The thing that makes you, you, is not meant to be buried because someone else calls it impractical.
Your true essence still wants expression. Your gifts still want a place to go. Your ideas still deserve a system. Your life still has more to unfold.
And age should never be the reason you deny the thing inside you that still feels alive.
We are never too old.
It is never too late.
Let love answer the door.
Today's Gentle Practice
Think about one desire, idea, or gift you've been dismissing because of your age, timing, fear, or someone else's opinion.
Ask yourself:
What part of me still feels alive when I imagine doing this?
Don't argue with the answer today.
Just notice it.
Notice whether there is energy there.
Notice whether there is curiosity.
Notice whether some part of you leans forward.
Fear may still knock.
Let love answer first.
With you,
Lynn
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