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So Much to Learn

Kathy Werner
Posted 1/28/22

I love to read/hear about/ watch biographies of accomplished people. I especially love those stories if they are about people in their extremely late middle age (such as myself—ahem) who …

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Lifelines

So Much to Learn

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I love to read/hear about/ watch biographies of accomplished people. I especially love those stories if they are about people in their extremely late middle age (such as myself—ahem) who accomplished their goals later in life.

Why, you may wonder, am I so fascinated with such tales? Well, perhaps it is because I like to believe that there is much more for me to undertake and achieve or, at the very least, learn.

As I recently heard someone my age observe, I have more runway behind me than in front of me. But I can’t let that slow me down. I could still write a bestseller, have it made into a screenplay, and become fabulously wealthy, couldn’t I? And have a pied-à-terre in Paris in April, one in Martha’s Vineyard in the summer, and one in Turks and Caicos in the winter?

I mean, in theory, these things could all happen, but it would all have to start with a blank piece of paper/blank computer screen/new document, and there’s the rub. That’s the part that gets me every time. Doing the actual work. Hmmm. Fabulous wealth is overrated, I’m certain, but a girl can dream.

I think that one of the problems may be that I am spending too much time reading about others’ lives and not living my own. Just a hunch! But I can’t help it! I always loved finding out about the people behind the façade of fame. Did you know that Charles Lindbergh fathered seven children with three different German women in the late 1950s? I feel like this should be in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Shocking!

Also, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved books were heavily edited by her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, who was an outspoken Libertarian. In fact, Christine Woodside has written a book called “Libertarians on the Prairie” which details how Rose used the royalty stream from the Little House books to finance Libertarian causes and willed the royalties to Roger Lea MacBride who later ran for US President as a Libertarian in 1976.      

So many fun facts!

Consequently, I can’t seem to get around to my own writing. There is just too much out there to discover.

And every time I head down one of those rabbit holes on the internet, I just get lost in the endless twists and turns of the warren.

Remember those encyclopedias they sold every week at the supermarket? Well, I was the kid who read each one as if it were a mystery novel. Cover to cover. Like those encyclopedias, the internet is an irresistible, infinite repository of fascinating facts. Addictive, one might say. And now that I’m semi-retired, these long winter days give me way too much time to explore.

Luckily, I’m also a big fan of self-improvement books, so I know what I must do. Step away from the computer. Make a plan. Make a vision board. Be kind to myself. Write one page every day. Read another self-help book. Go online to find out how others have done it…

And there I am, back in the rabbit hole again.

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