I used to think there was a “right age” to start certain things.
You should learn new things while you’re young.
You should develop your skills early.
And if you reach a certain age without discovering what you’re good at, somehow it feels as though you’ve left it a bit too late.
But recently, I was talking to my sister’s mother-in-law, and she made me wonder if that’s actually true at all.
She had never learnt to paint before her fifties.
Back then, I doubt anyone could have imagined that she would go on to win numerous awards, teach her own classes, and even have her work invited to exhibitions overseas.
The best part is, none of it was planned.
It all started when a friend signed her up for a Chinese painting class without asking her.
When she found out, she thought her friend was mad.
“I’m already in my fifties. I’ve never painted in my life. What am I doing going to a painting class?”
Her friend simply replied:
“I’ve already signed you up. Just go.”
So she thought, fine. I’ll go and have a look.
And she did.
There was no dramatic moment where she picked up a brush and suddenly discovered she was some hidden genius.
One day, she was practising at home when her husband saw her painting and asked:
“What are you doing?”
She said:
“I’m trying to paint a lotus, but I just can’t get it right.”
He looked at it and simply said:
“I’m taking you to meet someone.”
That “someone” turned out to be a well-known Chinese painting artist.
From then on, she began studying under him.
Once a week.
Every lesson involved more than four hours of travelling there and back.
And she kept going.
Lesson after lesson. Painting after painting.
Eventually, she began entering competitions and gradually went on to win a number of internationally recognised awards.
Then she started teaching her own classes.
Her work began receiving invitations to exhibitions in different countries.
And the woman who had once struggled to paint a single lotus eventually heard her own teacher say:
“There’s nothing more I can teach you.”
When she told me all of this, she spoke about it so calmly.
There was no showing off.
No attempt to make her life sound extraordinary.
She just smiled gently and said:
“I have no regrets in this life.”
She wasn’t only talking about the awards.
She meant the whole thing.
She had experienced the good and the bad.
She had achieved something of her own, and she had watched her children and grandchildren grow.
At this point in her life, she felt there was nothing left to regret.
And strangely, that made me think about the woman she had been in her fifties.
Back then, she had no idea what was ahead of her.
She didn’t know she would win awards.
She didn’t know she would one day teach other people.
She didn’t know her paintings would be invited to exhibitions abroad.
And she certainly couldn’t have known that one day, the master who taught her would tell her:
“There’s nothing more I can teach you.”
At the time, she was simply being pushed by a friend into taking a class she had never even considered taking.
And she thought:
Fine. I’ll go and have a look.
Sometimes we seem very good at deciding the ending before we’ve even started.
I’m not talented.
I’m too old.
Everyone else started years ago.
Is there even any point starting now?
But her story made me think about something.
How do you know you don’t have the talent for something if you’ve never actually tried it?
Before her fifties, she didn’t know she could paint either.
If she had refused to go to that first class, the version of her who went on to win awards, teach students and exhibit internationally might never have existed.
So when I think about whether it’s “too late” now, the answer feels much simpler.
Maybe the real shame isn’t starting late.
Maybe it’s never starting at all because you decided you were already too late.
She’s now in her eighties.
And she’s still teaching painting.
A door that opened almost by accident in her fifties has carried her all the way into her eighties.
So how can any of us know where the things we haven’t started yet might eventually take us?
If I don’t start now, will I ever know how far I could have gone?
Sometimes the talent you think you don’t have is simply something you haven’t tried yet.
Maybe you’re not late.
Maybe you just haven’t started yet.