Starting something—a diet, a workout regimen, or a new language—can be challenging. Two steps forward, one step back. Making mistakes, then making more mistakes, and sometimes not recognizing the progress made.
Starting something later in life, such as after retirement, comes with its own challenges. Yet, at the same time, it is a period filled with tremendous creative potential.
In her book It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again, Julia Cameron makes precisely this point. She started piano lessons at age 60, and, even after five years of practice, she still considered herself a beginner. (She added that her piano teacher applauded her great progress over this time.)
Why might retirement—a stage when “free time” suddenly appears—be a time when creative ventures go unexplored?
Cameron pointed to one clear possibility: vulnerability. After a work life and a family life full of achievements, the “beginning again” exposes people. Following a rewarding young and middle adulthood, the ensuing stage of older adulthood may be one of hesitation in starting something anew.
In Cameron’s words, “Often, when we say it is ‘too late’ for us to begin something, what we are really saying is that we aren’t willing to be a beginner” (p. 7). After all, the words “novice” or “amateur” or “elementary” aren’t praiseworthy descriptors in older adulthood.
But not for everyone.
Consider Oh Yul Kwon, a professor emeritus at Griffith University in Australia who retired in 2013 and lives in Vancouver, BC. Never an athletic type growing up, he started running at age 60 after an elbow injury sidelined him from tennis. It was his daughter, a runner and triathlete herself, who then suggested running to him. At first the idea seemed a bit unusual. In his mind, running was boring. He recalled watching a colleague during a marathon and wondered, “Gee, how could people do that?”
Dr. Kwon ran his first marathon at age 68 in Brisbane, though he likely didn’t foresee where his “restart” would take him.
In 2016, a month after turning 80, he ran his second Boston Marathon. He finished in 22,064th place. Completing a marathon at any age is an accomplishment, but this came with a special amount of pride. Shortly after crossing the finish line, his son told him that he had “won” the race, coming in first place in the men’s 80+ age group.
He credits his mental sharpness to running. “When I run,” he told me, “I do a lot of mental exercise” that includes reciting poems and doing calculations.
Dr. Kwon isn’t sure exactly many marathons he has run in his “restart.” The number is somewhere over 30, and altogether he estimates having crossed over 100 finish lines since his running ventures began.
His most recent accomplishment was completing the 2024 Vancouver Half Marathon, an event featuring over 4500 runners.
He has plans for another 13.1-mile race in Korea in the Fall. “I will run until I collapse,” he told the CBC News in 2016.
Dr. Kwon’s running restart typifies Cameron’s notion of beginning again, even when, in this case, it started with one step. As she wrote, “There is no such thing as a time that is ‘too late’ to begin a creative endeavor” (p. 111).
Photo credit: Oh Yul Kwon
References:
Cameron, J., & Lively, E. (2016). It’s never too late to begin again: Discovering creativity and meaning at midlife and beyond. TarcherPerigee.
Fisher, G. (2016, April 30). 80-year-old Boston Marathon champ from B.C. aims big for BMO Vancouver Marathon. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/80-year-old-boston-marathon-champ-from-b-c-aims-big-for-bmo-vancouver-marathon-1.3560887