An Ageless Guide

I recently watched Oprah Winfrey interview author and psychologist Edith Eger. Eger’s quite the inspiring woman. She survived Auschwitz as a girl, and went on, in her words, “to facilitate healing” in her work as a psychologist – work that focuses on forgiveness and the power of hope. If this wasn’t inspiring enough, her first book, The Choice, a bestseller based on her time in the concentration camp, was published in 2017, when Eger was 87 years old. Her second book, The Gift, was published this year.

Hearing this, I thought immediately of all the students I’ve taught who’ve feared that their chance to fulfill the dream of writing their novels or memoirs has passed them by. They’re simply too old. Often these aspiring writers are in their seventies, but sometimes they’re in their sixties or even fifties. The age isn’t really the problem, except that it stands as a measurement of the time not spent calling oneself a writer.

It’s one thing to be young and wonder if you will be a writer someday, it’s another thing to have spent decades calling yourself a teacher, or a doctor, or a mother, or even a director, and then look up one day and wonder if you could also be a writer. There is a security to be found in the labels we give ourselves; their inherent focus and perimeters form the path we learn to follow through life’s forests and mountains. How easy to believe that whatever career we pursued was not just a path that interested us, but who we actually were. It’s how we introduced ourselves at parties, after all; how we described ourselves on LinkedIn.

It makes sense to me that Eger, whose work has so focused on forgiveness, was able to write these books at such an advanced age. To forgive is to see past another person’s actions and words to who they actually are. Who we actually are is more than our words and deeds, and certainly more than whatever career we’ve chosen. The only true security I’ve known in my life has come from following what interests me most, whether it’s writing, or teaching, or music, or parenting, or a relationship. That was the only light guiding me, a light that has, if anything, grown brighter the longer I follow it.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com