April 7, 2010
Too Old?
If you say you wish you’d gone to college for a degree in _________, I’ll encourage you to go, whether you’re 25 or 85. Always wanted to see Paris in the springtime? Learn to cook? Get in shape? (I know some of you want the last one even if it doesn’t have the appeal of Paris.)
Do it.
If the dream seems too big, take it in small steps. Don’t have enough set aside for that trip to the City of Lights? Putting $50 or $100 in an account each month will have you crossing the Atlantic before too long.
I just turned 50 and feel like I have my whole life in front of me. Maybe it’s appropriate that my birthday was on Easter, the day we celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection. Here’s a wonderful quote from CS Lewis – “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
I believe that the key to an awesome future is to dream. If we stay in the past, we never move forward into the future. Think about changes you’d like to make. If you enjoy your work, great! If not, what do you want to be when you grow up? It doesn’t matter if you’ve been an adult for decades, dream about the possibilities.
Dig deep and dust off the dreams you had. If they don’t stand up to today (you’ve probably passed the age of playing pro sports), create some new dreams. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?
I’ve always liked this method from self-help guru Tony Robbins – his “Rocking Chair Test.” Picture yourself years in the future. You’re sitting on your front porch in a rocking chair (I don’t really see myself in a rocking chair but you get the point). Will you be happy if you did not do ________? If it made you sad to think you’d never learned to fly a helicopter (Tony went ahead and did this because of his test), go up the Amazon River or write a book, begin taking steps to do that today.
You can have new dreams and do bold things at any age.
These stories should inspire you if you’re thinking “I’m too old to __________.”
My husband’s 6th grade teacher, in her 70s, moved to Florida from Tennessee and immediately took scuba diving lessons.
Former President George HW Bush went skydiving in 2009 to celebrate his 85th birthday.
In 2007, at 95, Nola Ochs graduated from Fort Hays State University in Kansas.
When you meet someone like this or even see their photo, they don’t look “old.” They look vibrant and alive.
Challenge: Take time in the next couple of days to come up with three dreams you’d like to make a reality in the future. Take a step toward making at least one of them come true.
Keep dreaming. You’re never too old.
“He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!” Psalm 103:5, New Living Translation
Kaye Dacus said,
April 15, 2010 at 1:05 am
1. Get the heck out of this country! The only foreign travel I’ve ever done is to Mexico—over the border into Juarez once or twice a year when we lived in Las Cruces, NM, and a trip deep in-country when I was in college (Cuernavaca). Sometime in the next two or three years, I want to travel to England, and possibly to Continental Europe.
2. Write a nonfiction book on my experiences as a single Christian woman in the 21st century.
3. In the next twelve years: buy a house. I’ve been renting for the past fourteen years. I’d like to buy a house by the time I turn fifty.
Carol said,
April 21, 2010 at 9:44 pm
1. Become a published novelist. Oh, let’s just go whole hog here-become a multi-published novelist-don’t care about best-selling. I’ll take mid-list!
2. Learn to do competitive tracking with dogs and maybe search and rescue.
3. Finish my English degree. I just want the piece of paper that says I did it.