Are you a Late Bloomer?
Please be encouraged by this fascinating article in the New Yorker by Malcom Gladwell.
I believe it's never too late to pursue the things that interest you. I think we all feel that we have to have our life's plan mapped out before we live it, and yet I think the one of the most exciting things is living a life you never knew existed, one that is free from the constraints and expectations of doing what your parents did, or pursuing a passion you never realized you had until something in your life changed.
I think there is value in finding something that you enjoy doing and then figuring out a way to do it. You may never make a living from it, but sometimes the pursuit is more important than the money you'll make (or potentially lose) from doing it.
Life is too short to be afraid of failure. We learn from our mistakes, and the sooner we can start making them, the sooner we'll gain wisdom and knowledge in our pursuit. I feel like I've been a late bloomer in a lot of ways. And for all I know I may still have a few more blooms in me, but until then I'll continue to look for ways to grow where I'm planted (thanks JimiMac for the imagery), and be hopeful that, yes, I will bloom again...or at least not whither and die.
I believe it's never too late to pursue the things that interest you. I think we all feel that we have to have our life's plan mapped out before we live it, and yet I think the one of the most exciting things is living a life you never knew existed, one that is free from the constraints and expectations of doing what your parents did, or pursuing a passion you never realized you had until something in your life changed.
I think there is value in finding something that you enjoy doing and then figuring out a way to do it. You may never make a living from it, but sometimes the pursuit is more important than the money you'll make (or potentially lose) from doing it.
Life is too short to be afraid of failure. We learn from our mistakes, and the sooner we can start making them, the sooner we'll gain wisdom and knowledge in our pursuit. I feel like I've been a late bloomer in a lot of ways. And for all I know I may still have a few more blooms in me, but until then I'll continue to look for ways to grow where I'm planted (thanks JimiMac for the imagery), and be hopeful that, yes, I will bloom again...or at least not whither and die.
"On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer
will resemble a failure: while the late bloomer is revising and
despairing and changing course and slashing canvases to ribbons after
months or years, what he or she produces will look like the kind of
thing produced by the artist who will never bloom at all. Prodigies are
easy. They advertise their genius from the get-go. Late bloomers are
hard. They require forbearance and blind faith. (Let's just be thankful
that Cézanne didn't have a guidance counsellor in high school who
looked at his primitive sketches and told him to try accounting.)
Whenever we find a late bloomer, we can't but wonder how many others like him or her we have thwarted because we prematurely judged their talents. But we also have to acccept that there's nothing we can do about it. How can we ever know which of the failures will end up blooming?"
Whenever we find a late bloomer, we can't but wonder how many others like him or her we have thwarted because we prematurely judged their talents. But we also have to acccept that there's nothing we can do about it. How can we ever know which of the failures will end up blooming?"
"This is the final lesson of the late bloomer: his or her success is highly contingent on the efforts of others."
"Ben could start writing at seven-thirty in the morning because Sharie
took their son to day care. He stopped working in the afternoon because
that was when he had to pick him up, and then he did the shopping and
the household chores. In 1989, they had a second child, a daughter.
Fountain was a full-fledged North Dallas stay-at-home dad."
