When is a good time to start something?

By Rajesh Setty on Wed 04 May 2005, 6:34 AM - 6 Comments

Many of us think that we have lost opportunities and time and beat ourselves to death on that topic. There are hundreds of examples of people who started so late (on projects that they were passionate about) and still succeeded. Colonel Sanders comes to mind.

I read a recent post by Curt Rosengren at Worthwhile about a woman Simone LaDrumma who at age 40 decided to start learning to play drums. She now teaches drumming to students and is enjoying what she is doing?

Did you want to start any project and thought that you missed the “opportunity” - time to rethink, may be?

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Anonymous on May 4th, 2005

We are fixated by temporal aspect of starting something new. Yes, it is hard to be an Olympic gold medalist at 40 rather than 20. In general most of the projects can be started at anytime and we have good chance of making the best of it.

Anonymous on May 5th, 2005

No big deal. Start when you start. Totally unexpectedly, I picked up a songwriting career I left 20 years ago. (Resumed a couple years after finishing my master’s degree.)
It’s even sweeter now. Most midlife moms are not playing Nashville clubs, writing with collaborators with the age gap I do…and I am so excited, most of the time I’m turbocharged. I take chances, and create unafraid.
My grandmother received her highschool diploma at 79, my aunt in LA just renewed her drivers license at age 94 (her late husband became a successful artist in his 60s). My husband went back to grad school in his 30s and got a PhD and an MPH and is now working at a well-paying job he loves, that helps others.
Please remind me, why should we should be concerned with numbers?
R

Anonymous on May 5th, 2005

“Let me introduce our receptionist” said a cowriter when we were collaborating on a song at a Nashville Music Row publishing company. The receptionist was a man clearly older than I am…I had thought he was one of the complany principals, perhaps.
Not at all. He was an unpaid intern from a local college music program, currently enrolled. He was clearly in his 60s. AND…he was a retired cardiac surgeon.
Later that day, I went to play at a club. Performing in a round before me was another grey-haired man. “I’m a retired dentist. And I took 1st place ina Billboard Magazine song contest.”
So, what was that question?
Ruth

Anonymous on May 5th, 2005

Ruth and Ravi, good comments and I agree with both of you. But please remember that for every one such example, there are ten or hundred people who are thinking that they lost an “opportunity” and have sort of “given up.”
The more success stories we can share, the more inspiration to those people who are waiting in the sidelines to start that “something” that is close to their heart.

Anonymous on May 5th, 2005

What is SO important is that I, and others like me, have found that there is such joy in pursuing these long-deferred dreams, and far less self-consciousness, rigidity and unwillingness to learn than we had at a younger age. I have a number of people in my writing “cohort” who began to write seriously around the same time, and we have found that our ability to be mentored is actually greater now, catalyzing our progress.
Lance Armstrong said that if one has a second chance, one must go all the way. What he didn’t say, is that if one gets a second chance, one’s gratitude makes even the hard work sweet.
Ruth

Anonymous on May 10th, 2005

I heard a quote that said: “The best time to plant a tree was 40 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.”
I always think about that when I start to think about how much time I’ve let slip away. Honestly, all we really have is TODAY.
tim