Let's take Alice. She was brought up in a wealthy family, experienced some privilege and a bit of education. She's not all that stupid and not all that ugly. One would expect of Alice to be successful in life, bring home a decent paycheck, not make monumental mistakes and have an easy-going life. But Alice stuns all, messes up gynormously, marries the wrong kind of guy, ends up a single mom in a foreign country with nothing more than her sense of self-preservation, her God-given wits and her charming personality (yeah, oh so charming that you find me ---er I mean, HER cute).
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| This is me laughing at the idea of being the bestest, most badass, cutest, fittest security agent ever!! |
To correct the monumental life detour, she has two choices: either to be what people expected of her from the beginning, without having any experience and setting herself really high goals which might be unobtainable and thus setting herself up for disappointment or to develop into the person she could become, finding herself along the way and working on her strengths and weaknesses, occasionally making smaller mistakes because she's allowed to become that person within a certain amount of time.
It gets pretty annoying when her teen colleagues call the music she grew up with "oldies" or "retro hits" but she remembers that none of those kids can offer half as much maturity or experience as her and she has a lot of that. And because she wasn't forced to automatically BE, she had time to BECOME the really awesome, balanced person she was meant to be.
Now, going to study at the age of 31, when she should actually have her stuff together is not only a little uncommon. The professional world downright frowns upon "old" people. It is expected of her to know absolutely everything, especially herself and there is no room for mistakes. And yet she chooses to defy social standards, take detours and is brave enough to endure other people's stupid remarks. She trusts that she'll get to wherever she has to be at the right time.
What I want to say is that although the going might be tougher for you more than for others and your brain turns to mush as you grow older, you are never too old to learn new tricks. You can BECOME anything you want to BE. Motivation makes any obstacle seem smaller than it is. So take that time, make mistakes, let them make fun of you and your dreams and goals. Sometimes it pays to get detoured so you can develop new skills. It's ok to take your time, to find your "self" in the process. Enjoy the stressless time of BECOMING something before you have to prove that you ARE something, take your time to grow up and develop all your skills. They might be hidden but revealed to you along the way.
In the end everybody will applaud you for having had the balls to make your crazy dream come true, at any age. And that is always freaking inspiring!
