It's not too late
I spent my senior year of college in a Catholic convent.
Before you ask, there are no photos of me in a habit.
How and why I ended up in a convent is a long story for another day. But the short answer is this:
I was searching.
I did a lot of soul searching when I was in college – I got up early many days to attend a small daily mass that sometimes had as little as two of us in attendance – and I’d sit for a half hour after mass, meditating and praying on what I was supposed to do with my life.
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, I also spent my sophomore year in college on probation for too many..err....practical jokes and what-not during my freshman year. I was searching, but I was still in college.
The day that I graduated, I should have felt on top of the world and ready to take on the world. Instead, I was just confused as to what was next for me. English majors who didn’t teach went on to become….
What did English majors do?
It might be too late to order pizza, but it's not too late to try something new or be who you've always dreamed of becoming.
I felt, walking down State Street in Erie, Pennsylvania, in my cap and gown, that I’d missed something. My friends were graduating and going on to physical therapy school and accepting teaching jobs and OT jobs and I was walking down State Street in Erie feeling as lost as I'd ever felt.
My friends and classmates had figured something out – they had purpose and meaning. But the worst feeling I had that day, was that it was too late. If I hadn't figured out my purpose during college, I wasn't ever going to figure it out.
In the years between my college graduation and reading that quote, I had 25 jobs (I’ve now had 29). I loved that quote because I felt like George Elliot, whoever he is, was talking directly to me.
"Hey, Kim - it's not too late."
Now that I’m in the fitness industry, I love the quote even more.
It’s so easy to feel that because we never have – set foot in a gym – ran a 5K – took up golf – that we can’t. We didn’t learn those skills in our youth, and it’s too late to do that now. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
I’m calling bullshit. (Sorry mom – that I said shit).
Why not? Because there are 17-year-olds playing professional golf? 30-year-olds running for government positions? If you have something that you want to do or try, here is your permission slip.
Do it.
I don't regret that I've come to a career and to strength training much later in life than most. I regret that I spent 15 years of my life feeling like it was too late to become what I was destined to become.
It's not too late.
Do it.