Last Updated on November 4, 2026 by Michelle
Why growing older makes me more excited about life, and how wisdom, curiosity and anticipation can make the second half of life even more fulfilling.
I am convinced that the best years of my life are still ahead of me.
I don’t say this because I haven’t enjoyed the life I’ve lived so far.
Quite the opposite.
I’ve had a wonderful life, filled with experiences, accomplishments, relationships and memories that I’m deeply grateful for.
But here’s the thing.
I’ve already lived those years.
And as much as I appreciate them, I’m not particularly interested in reliving them.
What excites me is everything I haven’t experienced yet.
The people I haven’t met.
The places I haven’t lived.
The conversations I haven’t had.
The things I haven’t learned.
And perhaps most excitingly, the person I haven’t yet become.
I have noticed something about myself as I’ve grown older.
I keep getting wiser.
Not in the sense that I have all the answers. In fact, the more I learn, the more I realise how much there is still to discover.
But I understand myself better. I recognise what matters to me. I make decisions with greater confidence. And I find myself increasingly willing to explore possibilities that might not have occurred to my younger self.
That wisdom gives me the confidence to try new things.
Trying new things introduces me to circumstances I’ve never experienced before.
And those circumstances bring more learning, more possibilities and more reasons to feel excited about life.
It’s a wonderful cycle.
The older I get, the more I learn. And the more I learn, the more excited I become about getting older.
So when I think about aging, I don’t find myself wishing I could go backwards.
I’m far too curious about what’s ahead.
What Growing Older Has Given Me
We hear so much about what aging takes away from us.
Our youth. Our energy. Our appearance. Sometimes our physical abilities.
And of course, aging brings changes that we can’t ignore.
But I wonder why we spend so little time talking about what growing older gives us.
For me, one of the greatest gifts has been wisdom.
When I was younger, I spent much of my time working toward the next milestone.
Building my career. Raising my children. Creating financial security. Taking care of the many responsibilities that come with adulthood.
I enjoyed those years, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.
But I was also learning about myself along the way, often without realising it.
I learned what genuinely makes me happy.
I learned which relationships matter most.
I learned that achievements can be satisfying without necessarily being fulfilling.
I learned that confidence doesn’t always come from knowing the answer. Sometimes it comes from trusting yourself to figure things out.
And perhaps most importantly, I learned that I have more influence over the direction of my life than I once understood.
That last lesson has been particularly liberating.
Because the more I trust myself, the less intimidating the unknown becomes.
I don’t need every detail of my future to be planned.
I just need to believe in my ability to navigate it.
And after decades of living, learning, making decisions, making mistakes and discovering what matters to me, I have good reasons to trust myself.
Wisdom Makes Me More Adventurous, Not Less
There’s an interesting assumption about aging that I’ve never quite understood.
We often associate youth with adventure, experimentation and possibility.
And we associate getting older with becoming more settled, more cautious and perhaps less willing to try new things.
But my experience has been almost the opposite.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve become increasingly curious about the things I haven’t experienced.
I started writing regularly a few years ago, initially because I wanted to capture my thoughts about life.
I had no idea those reflections would eventually grow into BYORM—Be Your Own Role Model—a philosophy about intentionally designing the second half of life.
I started learning French because I imagined myself spending an extended period living in Paris.
I began thinking about the kind of work I might find meaningful after my corporate career.
And I’ve become increasingly interested in opportunities to mentor, speak and share experiences that might help others.
None of these things was part of some grand plan I created twenty years ago.
They emerged because I kept learning more about myself.
And as I became clearer about what excited me, I became more willing to explore it.
Recently, I attended an event organised by a women’s leadership network, even though I generally dislike networking.
I went because I could see an opportunity to contribute to something meaningful in the next phase of my life.
A younger version of me might have evaluated the invitation differently.
But today, I increasingly make decisions based on the person I want to become.
And I find that incredibly exciting.
Wisdom hasn’t made my world smaller. It’s given me the confidence to make it bigger.
Why I Don’t Want to Relive My Younger Years
Occasionally, I hear people talk nostalgically about their younger days.
How wonderful it would be to be 25 again.
Or 30.
Or to return to a particular period when life seemed especially exciting.
I understand nostalgia.
There are beautiful memories from every stage of my life that I’ll always treasure.
But if someone offered me the chance to go back and relive my twenties or thirties, I genuinely don’t think I’d want to.
Not because those years weren’t wonderful.
But because I’ve already experienced them.
I know what it feels like to build a career from the beginning.
I know what it feels like to raise young children.
I know the excitement of reaching professional milestones that once seemed distant.
Those experiences are part of me now.
And I wouldn’t trade the wisdom they’ve given me simply to experience them again.
What I don’t know is what it will feel like to build something entirely different in my fifties.
I don’t know whom I’ll meet through BYORM.
I don’t know what conversations I’ll have, what opportunities might emerge or which ideas will eventually become meaningful work.
I don’t know how living in Paris for two months might change the way I think about everyday life.
Or what new interests I might discover at 55, 60 or 70.
And that’s precisely what makes the future so appealing.
The unknown isn’t something I need to fear. It’s something I can look forward to discovering.
The Person I’m Most Excited to Meet Is My Future Self
I’ve spent quite a bit of time imagining myself at 58.
Not simply what I might own or where I might live, but what an ordinary day might feel like.
I imagine waking up without rushing.
Having coffee, writing in my journal, exercising and spending time thinking about ideas that interest me.
I imagine working on BYORM, perhaps preparing for a conversation, a talk or a project that could help someone else.
I imagine having lunch at home, enjoying a walk, reading something fascinating and spending the evening with people I love.
I imagine travelling, learning, discovering new places and continuing to build meaningful relationships.
It’s not an extravagant vision.
In many ways, it’s beautifully ordinary.
But it’s a life that feels deeply aligned with who I want to become.
What excites me isn’t just the freedom to spend my time differently.
It’s the thought of the woman I’ll be by then.
She’ll have another decade of experiences behind her.
Another decade of lessons.
Another decade of conversations, discoveries, challenges and moments that shape her perspective.
She’ll know things I don’t know today.
She may have interests I haven’t yet discovered.
And perhaps she’ll have found entirely new ways to contribute to the world.
I find that thought fascinating.
Because I don’t see my 58-year-old self as an older version of who I am today.
I see her as someone I haven’t yet had the pleasure of becoming.
I don’t want to be 28 again. I’m excited to be 58.
And I hope that when I’m 58, I’ll be even more excited about becoming 68.
Contentment Today, Anticipation for Tomorrow
One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about life is that contentment and ambition don’t have to be opposites.
I can be genuinely happy with my life today while looking forward to a future that might be even more fulfilling.
I don’t need to be dissatisfied with the present to want something different tomorrow.
In fact, I think the ability to appreciate today while anticipating tomorrow is one of the most beautiful ways to live.
I’ve experienced this through small things.
Looking forward to a trip.
Planning an evening with friends.
Imagining how a new piece of art might transform a room in my home.
Or preparing for my upcoming annual founder onsite with a friend, where we’ll spend two days reflecting on the past year and imagining what we want to create over the next decade.
The onsite hasn’t even happened yet, but I’ve already enjoyed thinking about it.
And I know I’ll enjoy the conversations when we’re there.
Then, hopefully, I’ll leave with new ideas and even more things to anticipate.
The pleasure isn’t confined to the event itself.
It’s also in the looking forward.
This is why Anticipation became one of the six pillars of BYORM.
Because I’ve realised that having something meaningful to look forward to adds a wonderful dimension to everyday life.
And as we get older, I don’t see why that feeling should diminish.
If anything, with greater wisdom about what truly matters to us, perhaps we can become even better at creating experiences worth anticipating.
I Trust My Future Self
Of course, I don’t know what the next ten or twenty years will bring.
There will be disappointments.
There may be unexpected difficulties, changes in circumstances or experiences I would never choose for myself.
Growing older doesn’t guarantee that life will become easier.
And I certainly don’t expect every year to be better than the last in every possible way.
But here’s what I do know.
I’ve watched myself grow wiser with every passing decade.
I’ve experienced how learning changes my perspective.
I’ve seen how new experiences lead to new interests.
I’ve learned how small habits, repeated over time, can create changes I couldn’t have imagined when I began.
And I’ve developed a growing confidence in my ability to make thoughtful decisions about my life.
So when I think about the future, I don’t need to know exactly what opportunities will appear.
I trust that I’ll remain curious enough to recognise them.
I trust that I’ll be willing to try things I haven’t done before.
I trust that I’ll continue learning from whatever life brings.
And I trust that I’ll keep finding ways to enjoy the life I’m living.
That confidence didn’t appear overnight.
It’s something I’ve built through experience.
Perhaps that’s another gift of growing older.
We accumulate evidence that we can trust ourselves.
And that trust gives us the courage to look forward.
What If We Changed the Way We Think About Aging?
I’ve often wondered what would happen if we approached aging with more curiosity and less apprehension.
Instead of asking how we can hold on to our younger selves, what if we became interested in the people we’re still capable of becoming?
Instead of assuming that our most exciting experiences are behind us, what if we continued making room for new ones?
Instead of measuring our lives only by what we’ve accomplished, what if we also considered how much we still have to discover?
I know that life circumstances differ, and not everyone has the same freedom or opportunities.
But I hope that, whatever our age or circumstances, we can hold on to some sense of possibility.
Because I find it difficult to imagine spending the next twenty or thirty years believing that the best part of life has already happened.
What would that leave us looking forward to?
For me, growing older isn’t simply about accumulating more years.
It’s about accumulating more understanding, more perspective and, hopefully, more wisdom.
And using those gifts to experience life in ways I couldn’t have imagined before.
The Best Years of My Life Are Still Ahead
I sometimes imagine looking back on my life when I’m 70.
I hope I’ll look back on this chapter of my life with enormous gratitude.
The years when I became clearer about what mattered to me.
When I started writing and developing BYORM.
When I began imagining a different kind of future.
When I built habits, strengthened relationships and started creating a life that felt increasingly aligned with who I wanted to become.
But I hope I won’t look back and think those were my best years.
I hope I’ll be too busy enjoying being 70.
Too curious about what I might learn next.
Too interested in the people I haven’t met.
Too excited about the experiences I haven’t yet had.
And perhaps still imagining the person I’ll become at 80.
Because I don’t believe the purpose of aging is to preserve the best version of ourselves from the past.
I believe it’s to keep discovering what the next version of ourselves might become.
I am grateful for the life I’ve lived.
I am happy with the life I’m living.
And I am genuinely excited about the life I haven’t yet experienced.
The older I get, the more wisdom I gain.
The more wisdom I gain, the more possibilities I see.
And the more possibilities I see, the more excited I become about the future.
That’s why I believe my best years are still ahead of me.
Not because I know what those years will bring.
But because I have every confidence in the woman who will be living them.
And I can’t wait to meet her.
BYORM — Be Your Own Role Model
Growing older isn’t about becoming less of who we were. It’s about discovering more of who we can become.
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