DREAMS HAVE NO EXPIRY DATE
Arianna Huffington, of Huffington Post fame, on her 71st birthday, expressed exactly how I was feeling having turned 65 earlier this summer.
“It’s a curiosity of aging that as we get older, we have more to look back on, but we also find ourselves looking forward with more intensity.”
What was on her mind in her 71st year? That one has more time than we often think we do to realize our dreams and build the lives we truly want. CS Lewis said it best, “You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.”
But it’s not easy, as we live in a culture that treats aging as an unfortunate disease – one for women that appears to start at 50. By 65 you’re considered to have one foot in the grave.
I wish more people and businesses thought like Mark Twain --
“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter.”
After a certain age, I have found that people fall into the “still” syndrome – they’ll say things like – ‘she’s still working', ‘still having sex’, ‘still sharp as a tack’ – as if engaging in any of those things past a certain age is a minor miracle.
Overcoming the aversion to aging isn’t easy, but “isn’t easy” doesn’t mean impossible.
In looking back through my diaries, I came across an entry made in 2019- a comment by Hazel McCallion, the legendary Mississauga, Ontario mayor, on the cusp of turning 100, “some of my most productive years came after I turned 65.”
Another trailblazer, Betty Friedan expressed the exact same sentiment back in 1993 when she published ‘The Fountain of Age’. “Aging is …. but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”
Over 50 years ago, Ms. Friedan blew open the doors of the women’s movement with her book, The Feminine Mystique, which exploded the myth of the average housewife. The Fountain of Age took on the topic of aging in a similarly groundbreaking way.
Forget about searching for the Fountain of Youth and believe in the Fountain of Age espoused Ms. Friedan. Stop defining aging in terms of decline, referring to it as the “Third Age” (after growing up, and then generating a family and/or career). This may well be the age of true creativity.
Why not consider these later years to begin a new career or take on something you have considered all your life. Think of age as an adventure.
Need some inspiration? You might have heard of Gladys Burrill. She’d been an accomplished pilot, mountain climber, hiker, and horseback rider. But these things are not what she is best known for.
Starting in 2004, at the age of 86, Gladys put her body into peak physical shape training with the annual goal of completing the Honolulu Marathon. She would finish those 26.2 miles, no matter how long it took. From 2004 to 2010, Gladys finished the marathon five out of seven times, and in 2010, at age 92, she earned the record of Oldest Female to Complete a Marathon from the Guinness Book of World Records.
One’s dream doesn’t have to be as monumental as Gladys Burrill’s. Mine was simple. I grew up in the world of purebred dogs. Breeding and showing. Living with dozens of dogs, going to dog shows every weekend of the year. At 16, it was off to university and all that was left behind.
As the years passed I yearned to get back into the show ring with my own dog (Think of Christopher Guest’s great movie, Best in Show!)
My 40s passed, then my 50s. Then, last year Zazz, my Bedlington Terrier, came into my life – and at 65 I walked into the show ring for the first time in 49 years. And the happy ending – as rusty as I was, and as new to this strange world that Zazz was, she won Best Puppy in The Terrier Group on her second day of showing.
For me, that was the dream come true. I can’t begin to express how much joy I get just looking at the big blue rosette that’s hanging in my office. The best way I can describe it is that it feeds my soul.
To quote Walt Disney, “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.”
To those of us of a ‘certain age’ let’s make “Having the Courage to Act” our new mantra.