What If You're Not Late?

Maybe you know this guy too.

He's the one who says, you're too old, or you missed your chance.

That's for people younger than you.

Or if he's feeling especially theatrical, that window closed, sweetheart.

I really hate that guy.

And the annoying thing is, he has gotten very good at his job.

He doesn't even have to yell at me anymore.

A little murmur will do.

Or even a raised eyebrow.

Or one well-placed, isn't it a little late for that? And suddenly I'm reconsidering something I was genuinely excited about five seconds earlier.

A few weeks ago, I was turning over an idea for something new in my work.

Nothing was decided.

I was just playing with it.

And I felt that little flicker.

You know the one.

That tiny jolt of hope or possibility.

The one that says, ooh, what if...

And almost immediately, there he was, saying, people start things like that in their 20s, Anne-Marie, not in their 50s.

And I could feel myself beginning to fold the idea back up before I'd even had a chance to look at it properly.

That's what bothers me so much about this particular gremlin.

He doesn't just tell us no.

Sometimes he gets to us before we've even fully asked the question.

And I've started wondering how often we do that to ourselves.

How many things have we quietly decided are no longer available to us? Because somewhere along the way, we absorb this idea that life has a very specific timeline.

That there's an age when you begin and an age when you succeed, an age where you reinvent yourself or fall in love or start a business or write the book or learn something completely new.