Second Acts that Change Lives - Wake Up! Life's Half Over! - Page 23

And that’s the true meaning of this whole book. We all need someone to push us into the water, when we’re afraid to put our heads under, even if the “water” is a new career, a new relationship, leaving an unhealthy one, signing up for an exercise class, or volunteering our time to make a huge difference in someone else’s life. We’re all terrified to leave the comfortable. None of us is especially confident in our own creativity, and most of us care too much what others think of us and their opinions of how and who we should be.

The great thing about midlife is that somehow, suddenly, this default position of doing for everyone else has shifted to “Stand back, this is my time.” Or at least there are glimmers of moments throughout the day when you can seize control and make it about you.

Now is your time. Join me and all of the second act reinventors in these pages as we revel in a freedom most of us never expected to have in midlife. By reading about other’s feats and firsts, my hope is it will prompt you to stretch yourself beyond your own safety net and open yourself to new possibilities. I’m looking forward to them, and who knows, I may meet some of you climbing a mountain some day. I thank Andrew, my spin instructor, for challenging me to “Wake up, life’s half over.” How about you? What first do you need to make happen, not someday, but today?

I don’t know where my triathlon and running adventures will lead me. I do know they have pointed me in many directions toward roads less traveled. Recently, I quit my full-time job and am reimagining my career at fifty. I’ve