Celebrate the Gift of Closed Doors

The joy of deadlines and limitations, or why "Sometimes it really is too late."

Pyramids of Giza. (Just felt right.) 📷

There’s a popular post format that you might have seen. It looks something like this:

Julia Child didn't learn to cook until her late 30s and published her first cookbook at 50. 

Charles Bukowski worked as a postal worker until age 49.

Samuel L. Jackson didn't get his breakthrough role in "Pulp Fiction" until age 46. 

…It’s not too late!

And technically, the examples in posts like these hold up. You can start writing a book at any age. You can change careers later in life and benefit from the experience you had doing something else. For writers, actors, and other creative types, this experience is especially helpful—it allows you to approach the work differently than others who’ve started earlier typically do. 

While these stories are inspiring, the “it’s not too late” lesson is not universal. Sometimes it IS too late! To believe otherwise is to believe in a fantasy. 

Some things in life have real deadlines—not all, but some. Most of the examples on the “it’s not too late” lists refer to intellectual pursuits, not highly physical ones. 

Think of Olympic gymnastics, where elite competitors typically peak in their teens or early twenties. Competing seriously at dance or most sports is harder than starting a business or going to acting auditions.

Pretty sure I’ve missed my chance for ballet.

Even for some intellectual pursuits, starting later in life is much harder than earlier. Certain skills require early development of neural pathways, like learning a language to fluency or becoming a concert pianist. You can learn to speak a language or play the piano, but you won’t learn the way you would have as a child or young adult. 

Time also passes differently as we age, and the time remaining becomes scarcer in later years of life. You could start medical school at age 60, but your years of being able to practice would be limited. The investment of time and resources might not align with your life goals at that stage.

Depressing? It Doesn’t Have to Be! 

You get the idea—limits are real. And is this the worst thing in the world? Is it even terrible at all? 

I’ve written a few times about my rejection from most Ph.D programs that I applied to, and how it felt crushing at the time. It’s what I thought I wanted more than anything. But much to my eternal happiness, the registrars of American’s finest institutions decided to save me 4-6 years of life. Those years turned into the best and most productive years of my life as I began writing online and then writing books. 

(I guess technically it’s not too late to apply again … but I hope that it is! In fact, I’m going to go with that: it’s too late, yay.)

So maybe instead of mourning, we should celebrate the things that have passed us by. 

When you’re young, you tend to learn hard lessons about heartbreak, for example. These lessons, while painful, build resilience. Of course, you can still have hard breakups later in life, but they don’t tend to hit with the same intensity. The first time—and maybe a few more times—you thought you simply couldn’t live if you separated from a person you loved. With the benefit of experience, you realize that you can.

A More Constructive Framing 

“It’s not too late” for lots of things, and that’s great. But sometimes it is, and that’s okay.

It’s not too late to learn something new. 

It’s not too late to try new things. 

But it might be too late for specific paths, and that's perfectly fine. In fact, it’s worth celebrating. 

P.S. On the subject of doing things later in life: one of my favorite Substack newsletters is The Common Reader by Henry Oliver. Henry has a new book out on the subject of late bloomers. It’s called Second Act, and was recently published in the US after its earlier debut in the UK. Recommended.