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Forty-something Is Too Late

By Marsha Maung

June 19th, 2008

Call it midlife crisis, call it depression but I know of a forty-something man who hit it, wallowed in it and considered suicide as a means to an end many times over. Each time the thought entered his head, he entertained the idea, mulled over each detail carefully, planned out each stage carefully and practiced it. And each time the time came for him to carry out his plan, his plans were disrupted. Most of the time, an unplanned event intervened. Sometimes it was a friend. One time, it was a car accident that shook him out of his disheartening plan.

When I spoke to Kevin, this friend my mine, about life, his version of things was nothing less than gloomy. Sometimes he would speak to me about his ideas and plans. Whenever I started to get enthusiastic or excited about his plans, he would say, “Nah…it’s too early to be dreaming. I’m not eighteen anymore. You don’t start something at forty-something. Most of the people my age are already enjoying whatever they have started in their twenties or thirties. Here I am, at forty-something and thinking of starting something as absurd as this…I’ll be laughing stock of the world”.

I was puzzled with his negative attitude towards his ideas. I’ll admit that some of them were out-of-this-world crazy but most of them, if he worked hard at ironing out some of the frizzle and wrinkles, it can work! I asked myself, why doesn’t he see this? His negative image was confusing for me because I get excited very easily at good ideas.

Then it hit me. He had a fear, no, make that MULTIPLE fears. The fear of failure, the fear of being rejected, the fear of being laughed at, fear of stepping out of his comfort zone….which was the negative zone! Something or someone had to make him take the first step out of that zone and I didn’t know how to do that. I wasn’t a mentor or a public speaker….I’m a writer, for crissakes!

Then, something hit me again.

“Fine. I can talk him out of his negative self-image, I will write him out of his negative zone”, I told myself.

I proceeded to write him a long-winded (nagging) document which tried to dissect his life, his perception about the world and why most of his plans could work if he had given them the slightest fighting chance. Basically, my idea was to tell him that it’s NEVER TOO LATE TO START SOMETHING as long as his heart was in it. Yes, most forty-ish people are already enjoying fruits of their labor. They took decades to achieve what the have worked for. But there’s absolutely no reason why he couldn’t double-up his efforts and start enjoying his efforts before he hit fifty.

Age is never a limit! As soon as you put a cap on time, you’re doomed when you hit thirty because they say that people hit midlife crisis at around that time….most of the time, anyway. I am in my thirties and I can’t get more excited about new projects and ideas all the time! That’s because I never let my age stop me from doing anything at all! In fact, I get sssooooo excited that I had to be put on medication to stop me from hyperventilating at the slightest hint of a new idea. :-)

At the end of the day, I wanted him to see that being forty-something does not mean that he has to mull over how he did not take action.

I got no reply from him for two whole weeks and I didn’t dare to call Kevin….just in case he thought that I was digging my hands into his pie.

He called me on a Wednesday and told me this. “Marsha, sorry I didn’t call you. I was too busy. Me and my friend just started a new company and I was working out with the web designers about the concept for the website. Sorry I forgot to call you to tell you how helpful your email was”, he told me. I almost wanted to cry with elation! It worked!

So, like Kevin, you can do something at any one point in your life. There’s no cap-off time limit. As long as your heart is willing and your head screwed on straight, there’s absolutely NO REASON why you can’t do now what you should have done a long time ago.

Go for it!

Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer who ghost writes articles, blogs, newsletters and web content for her clients. Marsha's just released her first fiction novel 'Imperfect' http://marshamaung.com/books/imperfect.html - a dramatic short story about the turmultous relationship between a mother and her daughter because of her daughter's deformity. For more info on Marsha, visit her website at http://www.marshamaung.com. Marsha actively and passionately contributes to http://www.contentmagician.com as well.