Although far from achieving all of my goals – or even most – I’ve established myself as a songwriter and recording artist to a degree I never would have imagined possible twenty years ago.

That said, when I was in my teens and 20s I already thought it was too late for me to become a songwriter. I hadn’t shown any special aptitude for it. None of my musical colleagues were encouraging my efforts. I had the desire but… if I had a particular talent for it, wouldn’t it be obvious already?

I never went to college. Later on, in my 20s and 30s, I thought about going… but I believed it was too late.

Meanwhile, a close friend of mine went to medical school when he was 30. Everyone told him it was too late. Everyone except me (I could see that it wasn’t – for him). He’s been a great physician for over 25 years now. Time passes, whatever you do.

In my 30s and into my 40s, I continued to believe it was too late for me to become a songwriter. I was doing pretty well as a professional musician, a bass guitarist. I kept writing songs; but on and off – which is no way to make progress at anything. I lacked the courage to be a committed writer. I told myself it was too late anyway. What was the point? It would probably all come to nothing.

Eventually I decided that although it was probably too late to start a career as a songwriter, it was what I wanted to do, what I needed to do, anyway. And I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more, that seemed as right to me, even though it was clearly… pointless… and too late.

My whole life I’d been telling myself at every stage that it was too late to do many of the things that really mattered to me. And I saw that I wasn’t the only one. Many folks around me were also telling themselves that it was too late for them to do what they truly wanted to do.

I started to understand that you can tell yourself it’s ‘too late’ at any age, even very young… and it’s usually irrelevant (assuming one is still capable physically and mentally)

‘It’s too late’ = fear.

We all want an existence that’s meaningful in some ways. But we often want a guarantee, before we start, that things will work out, that all that time and effort won’t turn out to have been a waste.

But there is no guarantee. It all could end for any of us at any moment. And, soon enough, it will. I’m not being morbid; it’s just true, whether you’re 20 or 90.

So the effort of trying to be sure that what I do with my life will later, in retrospect, prove to have been ‘worth it’… Who knows? I’m just making the best guesses I can based on experience, my limited self-knowledge and self-awareness, and the people and opportunities that are around me.

Seth Godin says you have to ‘pick yourself’ to do what’s important to you. To not wait around for someone else to pick you.

As I’ve come to know myself better, or maybe just as I accept myself more, my ‘guesses’ feel more authentic. For better or worse, it’s my path and I do my imperfect best to follow it.

Also, somehow accepting, not fighting, that there’s a good chance it really is too late, for some things anyway, has helped me, because the only sure thing a writer has to hold on to is that making the work can be deeply rewarding. The rest of it – its reception, its long-term value, etc. – much of that is out of our hands.

Time is going to pass anyway – look at my friend the doctor – and one has to do something. The question is, what? I choose to spend more and more of my time writing.

Is it ‘too late’? Probably. Isn’t it always?

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