I know now . . . Age is only a number.
When persons defy age starting a new profession and being active.
“You Are Never Too Old To Set Another Goal Or To Dream A New Dream”. — C.S. Lewis.
Years ago I received a video on the Internet about an 80-year-old man (Rodolfo), who after working on several things had started his modeling career around the age of 50, after getting a sculptural body from gym and swimming.
I thought this man was “a chickpea in a pound” — an expression in the Spanish language to indicate that in life there is always a rarity —, but when I met the protagonist of the story I am going to tell you, I came to the conclusion that there are many more people, men and women, than we can imagine, who reach 80 years of age in full mental capacity and working actively, either in their profession, in their businesses, or in both together; and in some cases, developing a project that they had in mind for a long time, always creative and moving forward.
t seems that Rodolfo had never thought of the possibility of walking down a catwalk, but someone gave him a couple of ideas and he continued with a fixed goal. Years went by and the man made a lot of money modeling clothes for mature men successfully. At the time of the video, this man had a men’s clothing business he designed and had reached his 80's.
In an interview at the end of a men’s casual wear runway, he said something that stuck with me: “We and only we put limitations on ourselves. I still have a lot of plans for me and my business, which I am developing every day, and will continue to be active as long as God wants.”
My protagonist
I was living in San Francisco when I was invited to a party I didn’t feel like going to, but in the end I thought it was Friday night and a little distraction would do me good. At some point I decided to talk to a lady who seemed nice to me and … surprisingly, she was Spanish-speaking. We talked about different things and . . . I didn’t stop listening to her until I left the meeting. In fact, I asked her permission to do a kind of interview with her so as to know a little more about her life, since I really liked her way of thinking.
She agreed to my request, and to my surprise the day we met, she gave me a manuscript with her life and miracles written in first person. She is not a famous woman; she is a professional lady who has had to struggle a lot in life to become who she wants to be, without influences of any kind. Sometimes I will call her Harmony, but the truth is that it is simply the life of a woman, alert and determined, who decided to be the most developed version of herself possible in this life.
I rewrote the story without altering anything important, I just made it more literary, since it was in very colloquial language. Needless to say I identified myself with her in my profession.
Here it is.
Beginning of Harmony’s Life.
Time For A New Career
It sounds funny to me listening yesterday whether it is possible to find a new career or work at 50 or more. Well, believe it or not I started a new profession at 80 . . . Yes, you read right: I began a new professional activity at 80, and believe me I am alive and in very good health.
I must admit my life has not been precisely a very normal one, but at the same time, my experience has proved reality is always stranger than fiction.
Let’s begin from the get-go.
When I was in High School, I wanted to be a Physicist after reading a Madame Curie’s biography. I thought: “Oh, God, there are many things to discover on this planet. I will be a wonderful scientist like this marvelous Polish-French lady, and I will discover the secrets of Nature”. I said this to everybody.
My formal studies have been in different countries. Once I finished my High School and first year of college in Madrid, Spain, where I got a distinction in Chemistry, I went to live in Havana, Cuba for 5 years, and actually I started the Physics career in the University of that city, ready to follow Mrs. Curie’s example. However, after 3 months I lost energy and dropped because I felt it had too much Mathematics.
Seeing things in hindsight, I don’t know how I could imagine it was possible to be a scientist without being strong in Mathematics. Now when I see I need a calculator to make a decent arithmetic operation, it is obvious the lack of information we (teenagers) usually had when selecting our studies for a future occupation. Or better said: in my generation, we didn’t have the right ideas when landing in the University, where only 25% of the students were women. We made only “emotional decisions”.
I started learning English just to do something, because I didn’t know what to do next.
More changes.
Later I moved to Mexico City and my mind “relocated” as well: I made up my mind to study a university profession was commonplace among my friends: Industrial Relations. Again I decided a career emotionally: only because most of my friends were in it. But this time I didn’t drop, but remained for 4 years in the University and received my BA Degree, in the meantime I worked in the Personnel Department of a big organization to support myself.
Around 1960 Computer Science was a baby, and IBM recruited graduates to teach them how to program different languages, like Fortran, Cobol, RPG. It was free and after work hours. I enrolled in COBOL and became a Programmer, going to work in the Bank System.
For nearly 10 years I worked in Computer Science really happy, during this time learning 2 languages (English and French) until I got the first diplomas, and traveling as much as I could in holidays. Yet one day (near my 37th birthday) I felt I got enough with Computers and crossed the pool, going to live in London, England for 5 years.
I decided to be bilingual.
Europa
In London I was a student with a part-time job as a shop Assistant in a well-known store that sold typical British cloth items as Shetland and Cashmere wool sweaters, plus Scottish kilts and blouses, where each employee spoke a different language to help customers; so I was the Spanish-speaking Assistant among other administrative duties. After few months I became the full-time Saturday Manager.
What a change !!
I said I was a student in London, because I attended English classes for foreign people in an official school, and went on and on until I took the official examinations to get a Diploma issued by Cambridge University. It was difficult for me, I must admit it, especially the oral comprehension exercises — still nowadays I have a deficit in understanding any foreign language, but I can read books easily. My educational background helped me a lot and got my academic document.
After this I “knew” I wanted to go on with languages, so I went to live in Spain after having been absent for more than 20 years, and I started learning how to be a Spanish Teacher as a second language — nothing strange as in England I realized what it was to learn a language as a second one. I worked as an English and Spanish Teacher for 9 years, teaching Spanish to students from all countries in the world mostly in summer, and English to nationals during the winter. I traveled extensively through Europe with a backpack on my shoulders and studied the History of every single country I visited.
Another change.
When I was about 55 years, again I thought “enough is enough” with teaching and with Europe, and went to live in Canada, both in the francophone and anglophone areas. I improved my foreign languages, read everything I could in the libraries, I married an American man, and after some years we came to live in the USA.
Odd? I told you at the beginning my life had not been a very normal one . . . , even less for my generation, whose people in my age group were starting the 60’s and pondering when and how to get retired.
You are not going to believe I wanted to be a housewife after my marriage, aren’t you? Of course not. What I did was to teach English to a lot of immigrants and Spanish mostly to Polish people for almost 15 years, and studied many other things I wanted to know — Web design, esoteric religions, the sacred sex, mental development, meditation, copywriting, etc. — , always following my impulses about knowledge.
I think we should study and work until death.
I celebrated my 78th anniversary very happy in my personal life, but bored to death with a part of my profession. I don’t like anymore to start with beginners. I love my Intermediate and Advanced students, all of them adults, who know what they want and learn keenly to be prepared to get ready to have the official examinations in authorized Spanish universities; but I detest now to start from the beginning. Why? I guess I have a lot of experience now and don’t feel comfortable lowering my speech to teach and repeat the basics to newcomers in a well-trod path.
I hate the treadmill, so I needed to do something to complement my teaching, seeing a different landscape with challenges.
Trying to re-invent myself, my profession, I accepted more classes on the Internet and rewrote some additional information I hand over to beginners or children — even I thought to publish a book with all this material--, but something inside me was not at ease.
After searching on the Web for more than a year and learning about the opportunities available on it, I considered it was the right time to write something more than my academic information, so I started writing my trips in Europe, chronicling all incredible places that continent has and encouraging people to travel and learn. Later, it will come articles on my long teaching experience, my love life, an essay dealing with metaphysic meditation, esoteric knowledge and religions, and everything was coming to my mind.
It is a new career and a way of moving forward. Most probably I won’t receive the Nobel Prize, but my attention is all the time working in my content and learning from other writers, editors, copywriters, etc.
End of Harmony’s story.
My own conclusions.
It is a surprise for me that people like Rodolfo or Harmony broke all patterns in their lives to catch up with other generations, and nowadays they can talk and work with younger people in their professions and businesses, when most people of their age group are either watching TV and getting fat or visiting the doctor with multiple ailments, real or invented.
I agree with all the Rodolfos and Harmonys in the world when they opt for living intensely the best creative moment in their lives. As I know a soul is eternal, for me re-embodiment is a reality — that is, sometimes we are manifested, with a physical body, but when we make the change to other dimension, we see clearly what kind of life we will have and, therefore, what knowledge will be acquired.
Working and learning till being an elderly albeit lucid person, it is like a desire to die standing, ready to come back as soon as possible, with all knowledge set to be used as soon as possible.
Amen.
