I Want My World to Get Bigger as I Get Older

Last Updated on September 27, 2026 by Michelle

I realised something about the life I want ten years from now.

I want it to be bigger than my life today.

Not a bigger house.

Not a bigger bank account.

Not a bigger title.

A bigger world.

I want to know people I don’t know today.

Writers.

Psychologists.

Neuroscientists.

Researchers.

Podcast hosts.

People thinking deeply about aging, human behaviour, longevity, parenting, career and the second half of life.

I want to sit across from people whose ideas challenge mine.

I want to speak to audiences in Singapore and Korea, perhaps Japan, Hong Kong, London and places I haven’t even considered yet.

I want women navigating midlife to come up to me after a talk and ask me questions.

I want to help them figure their own role models out.

And perhaps, because I’ve spent years thinking about some of the same questions, I can help them find their own answers.

I want conversations I cannot currently imagine.

I want introductions that lead somewhere unexpected.

I want to keep discovering new worlds.

And perhaps most importantly:

I don’t want to know exactly where any of it will lead.

Maybe Nothing Is Wrong With Your Life

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what happens around midlife.

For many of us, life is objectively good.

We have spent decades building it.

We studied.

Built careers.

Created families.

Bought homes.

Made friends.

Developed routines.

Learned what we like.

Became good at our jobs.

Became better at being ourselves.

And perhaps that’s precisely where something interesting happens.

Our lives become increasingly known.

We know what Monday morning looks like.

We know our colleagues.

We know our industry.

We know our friends.

We know our role in the family.

We know the restaurants we like.

We know the holidays we enjoy.

We know what we’re good at.

There is enormous comfort in that.

There is also, perhaps, less surprise.

Fewer firsts.

During my recent Ho Chin Minh trip, I had 2 firsts. I went to a live music bar where the tables are all facing one direction, towards the singers. I also had an inspiring session sitting at the Opera restaurant’s bar area within the Park Hyatt Saigon. The particular feeling I got while being there for a 2 hour slow breakfast session gave me an inspiration to recreate the vibe at home. It’s new project I’m working on.

Fewer rooms where we know nobody.

Fewer subjects where we are beginners.

Fewer moments when we think:

I wonder where this could lead.

Sometimes we interpret that feeling as dissatisfaction.

Maybe something must be wrong.

Maybe we need a dramatic change.

A new job.

A new city.

A new life.

But perhaps nothing is wrong.

Perhaps our lives have simply become too known.

Maybe What We Are Missing Is Possibility

Earlier this year, I found myself feeling bored.

That confused me.

There was nothing obviously missing from my life.

I have a family I love.

A successful career.

Financial security.

My health.

Friends.

Travel.

Interests.

Things I am grateful for.

So why did I feel as though I needed something else?

Initially, I thought I needed more things to look forward to.

A trip.

A dinner.

A plan for next month.

And I do love those things.

I realised that Anticipation mattered much more to me than I had previously understood.

But now I think there may be another layer.

Perhaps what I was craving wasn’t simply something enjoyable in the future.

Perhaps I was craving possibility.

Something that hadn’t been decided yet.

Something I didn’t know how to do.

Someone I hadn’t met.

A room I hadn’t entered.

A version of myself I hadn’t become.

There Are Two Kinds of Anticipation

I think there may be two kinds of anticipation.

The first is known anticipation.

I know I’m going to Ho Chi Minh City next week.

I have booked a lovely hotel.

My husband has organised dinner.

I know I will have time to myself.

I’m excited.

That anticipation makes the weeks before the trip slightly more enjoyable.

Then there is another kind.

Unknown anticipation.

Something is beginning in your life, and you have no idea where it will lead.

For me, Be Your Own Role Model feels like that.

I don’t know what BYORM will look like ten years from now.

I don’t know who I will meet because of it.

I don’t know what I’ll believe about aging, psychology or life design after another decade of learning.

I don’t know which conversations will change my thinking.

I don’t know which ideas I currently believe that I will eventually decide were wrong.

I don’t know who might read something I’ve written and contact me.

I don’t know which introduction will lead to another introduction.

I don’t know which stage I might eventually stand on.

I don’t know which podcast conversation might completely change the direction of my work.

There is so much I don’t know.

And increasingly, I realise:

I love that.

I Want to Be a Beginner Again

I have spent a large part of my adult life in one professional world.

After decades in that world, there are many things I know how to do.

There is enormous satisfaction in expertise.

But there is something exhilarating about being a beginner again.

With BYORM, I am one.

I don’t have decades of experience in psychology.

I’m not a neuroscientist.

I’m not an academic researcher.

I’m not an experienced speaker.

I’m learning.

And perhaps the next decade of my life isn’t simply about becoming more accomplished.

Perhaps it is about entering more rooms where I am not yet accomplished.

Rooms where I have to listen.

Rooms where I ask questions.

Rooms where someone says something that makes me rethink an idea I’ve held for years.

Rooms where I feel slightly uncomfortable.

Rooms where I think:

I would never have been here ten years ago.

That sounds like a good decade to me.

I Don’t Just Want a Network

Recently, I realised that my network for my future life is still relatively small.

Most of the professional relationships I have built over the past few decades come from the world in which I currently work.

That makes sense.

But the world I hope to inhabit ten years from now is different.

I want writers to know me.

Psychologists.

Researchers.

People thinking about neuroscience and longevity.

Podcast hosts.

People helping others navigate midlife.

People exploring how humans continue to grow and find meaning as they age.

Initially, I thought:

I need to build a BYORM network.

But even that doesn’t quite capture what I want.

I don’t want to collect contacts.

I want intellectual friendships.

I want people who make me think differently.

People I can call and say:

I’ve been thinking about something. Tell me why I’m wrong.

People whose books I read before having coffee with them.

People who send me an article because they know I’ll find it fascinating.

People twenty years younger than me.

People twenty years older.

People from disciplines I don’t understand yet.

People whose lives look nothing like mine.

I want my thinking to become richer because the people around me become more varied.

A Different Definition of Reinvention

We often talk about reinvention as though we need to abandon one identity and create another.

Banker becomes entrepreneur.

Executive becomes writer.

Lawyer becomes artist.

But perhaps reinvention doesn’t always require destroying the old life.

Maybe sometimes we simply need to expand beyond it.

Keep what is good.

Then make the world around it bigger.

That feels much closer to what I want.

I don’t reject the person I’ve spent decades becoming.

I’m proud of her.

She built a life I genuinely like.

I want to take her with me.

But I don’t want her world to remain the same size forever.

More Space in My Days. More Life in My Years.

This creates an interesting contradiction.

Because when I imagine myself at 58, I also want more Yeoyu.

Yeoyu is a Korean word that can mean space, margin, leisure or composure.

I want less rushing.

More room between commitments.

Slow breakfasts.

Time to read.

Time to think.

Time with my husband.

Beautiful surroundings.

Space to notice that I’m enjoying my own life.

So how can I want both?

A quieter life and a bigger one?

I realised they aren’t opposites.

I want more space in my days and more life in my years.

Less obligatory work.

Less rushing.

Less proving.

Fewer things done simply because they are expected of me.

But:

More people.

More ideas.

More places.

Maybe Aging Well Means Expansion

There is a cultural idea of aging that often involves gradual contraction.

We stop working.

Our social circles become smaller.

Our worlds become more familiar.

We travel less.

We take fewer risks.

We become more certain about what we believe.

We increasingly stay inside the life we already know.

Some contraction may be inevitable.

But I don’t want to voluntarily begin it early.

What if part of aging well is deliberately doing the opposite?

Keep adding people.

Keep adding ideas.

Keep entering new rooms.

Keep becoming a beginner.

Keep discovering places.

Keep asking questions.

Keep changing your mind.

Keep allowing life to surprise you.

Perhaps physical health isn’t only valuable because it helps us live longer.

It helps us keep participating.

Perhaps financial freedom isn’t only valuable because it allows us to retire.

It gives us freedom to explore.

Perhaps intellectual growth isn’t simply about keeping our minds sharp.

It keeps our world interesting.

Perhaps meaningful connections aren’t simply about maintaining old relationships.

They’re also about continuing to make new ones.

And perhaps anticipation isn’t simply having something on the calendar.

It is knowing that parts of our future remain wonderfully unknown.

The Woman Who Says, “Is This It?”

I imagine meeting a woman in her early 50s one day after a BYORM talk.

She has done well.

Her career is successful.

Her children are nearly grown.

Her marriage is fine.

She’s financially comfortable.

Nothing is particularly wrong.

And yet she asks me:

“Is this it?”

I don’t think I would tell her to change her life.

I wouldn’t tell her to quit her job.

Move country.

Find a new purpose.

Start a business.

Perhaps I would ask:

What if your life doesn’t need replacing?

What if it simply needs expanding?

Maybe you need something you don’t know yet.

A new subject.

A new person.

A new room.

A new question.

Something you’re bad at.

Something that makes you slightly nervous.

Something you can’t put neatly into your five-year plan.

Something that gives you the feeling:

I have no idea where this is going.

Perhaps that’s exactly what you’ve been missing.

Contentment and Expansion Can Coexist

The beautiful thing is that wanting a bigger world doesn’t mean rejecting the one I already have.

I love my life.

That’s becoming increasingly important for me to say.

I don’t want reinvention because I need to escape.

I want reinvention because I’m curious.

I want my husband beside me ten years from now.

I want my children around my dinner table.

I want my coffee.

My journal.

My quiet mornings.

My health.

My home.

My existing friendships.

I want to preserve so much of what I already have.

But around those things?

I want the world to keep opening.

I want to recognise 58-year-old me.

And I want her to surprise me.

I want to look around her life and see people 48-year-old me didn’t know.

Ideas I hadn’t encountered.

Places I hadn’t expected to go.

Questions I hadn’t thought to ask.

Work I couldn’t yet imagine.

And I want to think:

How extraordinary that all of this came from opening one door, and then another.

Perhaps that’s the second half of life I am designing.

Not retirement.

Not slowing down.

Not endless achievement either.

Something much more interesting.

Contentment with the life I already have.

Yeoyu to actually experience it.

And enough curiosity and courage to keep making my world bigger.

Because perhaps one of the best signs that we are still fully alive is very simple:

Our world is still opening.