TOO LATE TO CHANGE
EPISODE 023: TOO LATE TO CHANGE
If change is the one true constant in life and we’re subject to it as much as other things, why does it seem so hard to reinvent ourselves? Is it ever too late to evolve or start over, to move in new directions that are unexpected, to others, but often ourselves most of all? Let’s talk about it.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sitting in front of a roaring fire with a glass of whisky the other night a friend turned the conversation in an unexpected direction and out of nowhere told me he admired how easily I seem to be able to reinvent myself. Others have said this to me before but it’s never stuck like this and I was left wondering why my so-called reinventions are worth commenting on at all. After giving it some thought, I think it’s a conversation about change and the labels we apply to ourselves that come to define us and make that change difficult, especially as we get older.
If change is the one true constant in life and we’re subject to it as much as other things, why does it seem so uncommon and so hard to reinvent ourselves? Is it ever too late to evolve or start over, to move in new directions that are unexpected, to others, but often ourselves most of all?
I’m David duChemin, this is Episode 023 of A Beautiful Anarchy, Too Late to Change. Let’s talk about it.
In researching the idea of reinventing ourselves I kept coming up with articles about artists who got their start “late in life”. Musicians who fought and fought and didn’t get recognized until (gasp!) their early thirties.
Amazing they even let them out of the senior’s home. Late in life? Early thirties? Aren’t they cute. In your early thirties you’re closer to needing your mother's signature on consent forms than you are to retiring. Then I did a search for “is it too late to change your life?” because I couldn’t think of a better search term and I found myself on a message board site, many of the answers saying, encouragingly: “No! It’s never too late! Even if you’re in your 30’s!” In my 30s? Please!
I am fascinated by the question: "Is it too late?" And because so many of the folks who listen to this podcast are, well, not in their 30’s, I wanted to explore the relationship between age and creativity, specifically the idea that because we’re a little older–and listen, I’m just shy of 50, so I’m somewhere in the middle–because we’re older, the die has been cast already, the concrete has been poured and set, and if you didn’t get your hand prints into the cement years ago, it’s too late now to leave a mark. What rubbish. This conversation isn't really about age. It’s about change and the labels we identify with, and those challenges apply no matter how old you are. It’s just that we become more aware of the time as we get older. And the labels get harder to peel off.
Is it too late to start over? To change? Do do something different, even to be someone different? I think if you are asking the questions at all, it’s not too late. But it’s like we hit these imaginary milestones and start checking the best-before date, like we’re a container of dodgy yogurt and one day past the expiry date we freak out and just want to throw it away. Can yogurt even go bad? Isn’t it, by definition, just milk that went bad. Milk shouldn’t have a best-before date so much as a yogurt-after date. I like yogurt. Why are we all so worried that we’re going to wake up one day and find the line, that imaginary line that's only visible in hindsight, and think, well, that’s it for me?
Painter Mark Rothko was 43 before he found critical success
Singer Susan Boyle was 48 when she got noticed on Britain's Got Talent
Helen Downie started painting at age 48, without any formal training and only after a battle with cancer and alcohol, rose to international fame, though the fame is not really the point.
Martha Stewart didn’t really become the Martha Stewart we know until she was almost 50.
Fashion Designer Vera Wang was 41 when she started to design wedding dresses.
The American Folk Artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses, know as Grandma Moses, didn’t start painting until she was 78.
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Phyllis Diller was 38 when she first tried stand up comedy
Colonel Sanders started KFC at 65
Ronal Reagan entered politics at 55
Paul Cézanne had his first exhibit when he was 56
When I was looking into all this I found articles that addressed the fear that it was too late to start over, or find success after 60. I also found articles that said the same things for people after 50, 40, and 30, and even those in their twenties approaching 30 like it was the edge of the known world and beyond which lie dragons. This is clearly a universal mental obstacle. You’re not alone if you feel like you’ve missed your chance, but you haven’t. In fact, I think in many ways you get more chances as you get older.
Look, you have more experience now than ever. More stories. More wisdom. Why in God’s name do we fetishize youth in this culture? I’m not dismissing youth, they’ve got so much fire in them, and we need that, but to discount those over 30 because they’re not wrinkle-free and they've lost that new car smell is ridiculous. Your taste and sensibilities are more honed. You’ve lost some of the tolerance for the bullshit and no longer care quite so much about what others think, or if you’re not quite there you've at least learned that others are too busy thinking about themselves to be thinking too critically about what you do. My God, the freedom in having some of that in the rear-view mirror!
Here are two beliefs that keep me embracing, even pursuing change, which keeps me creatively flexible and willing to move in new directions.
The first is that we don't reinvent ourselves so much as we evolve. It looks, to others, like reinvention because to them we are this one particular person defined by the things we do and when we suddenly change that, it seems like we’ve turned on a dime and aren’t we brave? But we don’t turn on a dime, the desire for change usually builds slowly in us, the fire grows and it’s hard to see from the outside, but YOU have to see it from the inside which is harder than it sounds because to do that means an admission that change is coming, it’s a confrontation between a version of ourselves that we have to be willing to let go of, and a version of ourselves that we really don’t know yet. Meeting new people is hard.
But it doesn’t have to be scary. It’s still you, and for now you can entertain the new interest, the new direction, the new admission that “I’m not who I once was” without completely ditching the old labels. A snake grows it’s new skin for a while before it sheds the old one, to do otherwise would leave it vulnerable, not unlike the way we feel when we first identify the changes we want to see in our lives and think, “well how the hell is THAT going to work?”
I think personal evolution becomes harder the more tenaciously we cling to the labels that define us. If I am ONLY a photographer it’s going to be hard to wrap my head around the idea that I might wake up one day with no desire to pick up a camera again, and it might be really hard to entertain the growing desire to paint or write poetry instead because “that’s not what photographers do". Or if you’ve been “just a mom” for many years as the kids have grown, you might find it hard to see yourself now as an artist. But does it have to be so binary? Can’t you be both for a while, or even forever? Can’t you ease in, evolving as a person, recognizing daily change, constantly wondering at the way life and our tastes and desires unfold? Would it harm any of us if the labels we wear were smeared and hard to read?
I’ve come to see my creativity itself as my path. That’s my label, intentionally vague as it is. That path took me into comedy and it took me out. It took me into photography and design and writing and publishing, and I haven’t got the foggiest idea where it might lead me in the future, but because I’ve been aware enough to see the changes coming and I’ve let them come without resistance, my so-called reinventions are just the slow invisible evolution becoming visible and because it’s slow I can test the waters before I leap, easing in a little to see how it feels.
Believing that it’s our nature to evolve slowly into who we're becoming makes this all so much easier. But I also believe it’s never too late. The cement never dries. If you’re asking the question, if you’re longing for change and new direction, it’s never too late. And it’s never permanent. If you’re a musician that feels pulled away from rock and into jazz, try it out, embrace the zag. And if it’s for you you’ll find your joy there, you’ll discover new directions and challenges. And if it’s not for you, you can always go back. And if you’re wondering what other people will think, who cares? They’ll think it’s interesting, they’ll think you’re brave for embracing the change, they’ll wish they had listened to their gut when change was calling them. With any luck you’ll inspire them to finally do so. But you’ve got to listen to your gut, not to others.
You might be surrounded by wonderful and supportive people but that doesn’t mean they’ll understand. Some of them will misinterpret your change of direction as a loss of sanity, or a mid-life crisis. Let them. Some of them will be threatened because they’ll now have to experience you through a new filter and they’re wondering how your relationship might change as a result. They’re not good with change, either. They might just be worried about you and push you to re-consider. You’re allowed to listen to that concern and respectfully decline to change your course. After all, they won’t be the one living with the regret of not having followed their dreams. Or maybe they already do and that’s why they’re pushing you not to, and precisely why you need to keep following that desire to change, maybe it’ll finally give them the courage to do so themselves.
Creativity is about change. It’s about possibilities. And the only time it’s too late to change our ideas, our tastes, our creative directions, or even who we believe ourselves to be, is when the paint is dried on our lives and we’ve signed our name to it and called it done. Until then, no one living a life of everyday creativity can escape the need to establish their own relationship to change. It’s constant and necessary, and less frightening the more frequently you embrace it, and the more you see it as an ally, not an enemy, the more lightly we cling to the labels that others, or we ourselves, use to define us, and the more willing we are to see where new directions lead, the more interesting our creative lives become.
It is too late to change? To find success, whatever that means to you, in another field of creative endeavour, or to explore new ideas and directions? Only you get to decide that. If your answer is yes, then you’re right. It probably is. Because it’s not your age that determines the answer to this question, but your willingness to follow the muse where she takes you. Very few people succeed because they’re young, and very few people fail because they’re getting older. We get better as we age, though less nimble. But unless you’re wanting to switch gears and become an olympian or a yoga teacher, it’s mental flexibility you need and that’s got nothing to do with age, unless you let it.
Thanks so much for letting me keep you company for a few minutes today. If these short conversations are helpful to you I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a note at talkback@beautifulanarchy.com if you get a moment. I release new episodes of A Beautiful Anarchy 3 out of every 4 weeks but if you still want your fix, I’d love to send you the latest issue of On The Make, which is my monthly chance to encourage you in your everyday creativity by email. Just go to aBeautifulAnarchy.com, hit the link in the bar at the top, and tell me where to send it. I’ll also send you a copy of my eBook, Escape Your Creative Rut, 5 Ways to Get Your Groove Back. Thanks ever so much for being part of this with me. Until next time, go make something beautiful.
Music in this episode: Acid Jazz (Kevin Macleod) / CC BY-SA 3.0