Learning Later in Life

You know that saying about the old dog and new tricks? I’ve never believed that.

It’s easy to get stuck in familiar ways of doing things. Most of us stick with what we know. Most of us do that out of sheer force of habit (and, let’s face it, laziness. Trying new things is hard work sometimes.) But the fact that we lean toward the familiar doesn’t mean we’re doomed to live out our days doing only those things we’ve done before. We always have the power to learn something new.

We’re born knowing that—babies do nothing but learn new things. But many of us lose our hold on that knowledge in our adolescent years.

When I was teenager, I worried about a lot of things. I worried what my friends would think of every decision I made. I worried about the future and what it held for me—or didn’t. I worried about making a mistake so huge, it would ruin the rest of my life. (If that seems overly dramatic, think about how often that kind of mistake is used to control teenagers’ behavior. We actively encourage teens to believe they’re one misstep away from total disaster. They don’t come up with this stuff by themselves.)

Somewhere along the way, though, I remembered the power I was born with. I remembered that learning new things is what human beings are designed to do.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned just since turning 40:

I learned how to run.

Someday I’ll share the events that led to my becoming a runner in midlife. For now, I’ll just say that I did. I bought a treadmill to eliminate excuses—no more It’s too hot or It’s too cold or It’s too dark. I was determined that my life was going to change. And it did.

At first, I was just barely able to walk for a mile without feeling like I might collapse. Then I was able to walk two miles. Then three. At some point, walking felt too slow. It occurred to me that maybe I could jog. So I did—while holding on to the handrails, for fear that I’d go flying into a wall. But eventually, I trusted myself enough let go. And then, all of a sudden, I was running.

I’ve since had to change my exercise routine, for a variety of reasons–but the lessons I learned from running gave me a confidence in my body that I didn’t have before. And so . . .

I learned how to work out at a gym.

This might not sound like a big deal to many people, but I’d never set foot in a gym until I was almost 50 years old. (That’s one of the reasons I bought a treadmill for my home—the idea of going to a gym was just too much.) Then Planet Fitness opened a new location near my house, and my daughter talked me into buying memberships for the two of us. She convinced me that if I could teach myself to run on a treadmill, I could certainly handle working out at a gym.

Planet Fitness is the perfect place for introverted people who want to figure things out on their own. Every machine has diagrams and written instructions to tell you which muscles you’re working and how to work them correctly. If you want or need instruction, you can sign up for time with a trainer. If not, you’re left to work out at your own pace.

Now, in addition to walking on the treadmill, I lift weights and cross-train on the elliptical machine and step-climber. The gym keeps me from getting bored with my workout—yet another excuse I’m always fighting against.

I learned to write a food blog.

My first blog (now defunct) was the product of a total life change that took place after I started running. When I started to feel more physically fit, I became more concerned about how I was eating. That, in turn, led me to think about how I was feeding my family. I started writing a food blog as a way to involve my husband and kids in the process of planning healthier meals.

Initially, The Family Foodie was housed on a free blogging website. Blogger is terrific if what you want is simply a place to express your thoughts or archive your recipes. But when I realized that I loved blogging and wanted to turn The Family Foodie into a more professional enterprise, I attended a blogging conference to learn how to do that. Then I hired a website designer to move The Family Foodie to its own space on the Internet. That move involved learning how to use WordPress software.

None of these things was terribly difficult, but all of them were scary at first, because they involved doing things I’d never done before.

I learned how to build a blog from scratch.

When I started thinking about She Dwells, I decided I was ready to build it myself, rather than hiring a designer. I purchased web hosting, created a header, purchased a theme, and customized it on my own.

Was it scary? You bet. I spent a good month or more just thinking about whether this was something I really wanted to do, whether I should spend the money involved, whether I really had the time and energy to run another blog. I hit roadblocks, asked questions, did more research. And I learned a lot.

 

That’s what it’s all about, in the end: learning from the possibilities we allow ourselves to consider. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that failing won’t bring about the end of the world. Fail is a relative term: you get to decide for yourself what constitutes success.

She Dwells exists because I made it happen. I’m calling that a success.