Forget everything you’ve been told about aging gracefully and just accepting limitations. Rally asks a bold question: what if you treated your later years like your most ambitious creative project yet? Learn why the stories we tell ourselves matter more than we realize, how to embrace being hilariously bad at new things, and the one declaration that’ll guide everything you do from now on.
Episode Transcript
Hello beautiful people!
Welcome to the Silver Beast Podcast, where we explore this wild, wonderful and sometimes wobbly journey of growing older – silver beast style. I’m your host, Rally Preston, proud to be 70 years young and still figuring it out as I go along.
You know, I was watching my neighbor a few years back wrestle with his new smartphone on his front porch. He’s sharp as a tack, but like many of us, not exactly tech-savvy. Well after a good ten minutes of manic button-mashing and some choice words I can’t repeat, he finally cracked the code and got it going. The frustration on his face turned into this huge grin of triumph – like he’d just climbed Mount Everest in his duct-taped sneakers…he had on.
Well that moment got me thinking: What if we stopped seeing aging as a series of aimless fumbling around and daily disappointments — and instead started treating our life from now on as our most ambitious creative project yet?
Here’s what I believe: Making aging our creative masterpiece might be the most meaningful goal we can pursue in our later years.
I’m not talking about chasing some impossible standard of perfection – that’s a fool’s errand if there ever was one.
But what if the years stretching ahead of us became our new blank canvas? What if aging with intention, purpose, and yeah – even a little style thrown in – became our next great work of art? What if instead of just letting these years happen to us, we actively shaped them into something really beautiful?
Think about this for a moment – we baby boomers are the first generation in human history with the real possibility of having decades of relatively healthy, active years after we retire. My parents’ generation wasn’t nearly as lucky as we are I don’t think. We’ve been handed this incredible gift of time, previous generations could only dream about. To me, that’s more than just a privilege – it’s a creative opportunity of epic proportions. Seriously. Why would we waste it?
This is our time, my friends. This is when we get to pursue all those things we’ve always wanted to do but put off while we were busy being responsible adults. Maybe for you that’s finally learning to play the saxophone, writing poetry, volunteering at the animal shelter, mastering your grandmother’s sourdough recipe, or taking up ballroom dancing? I don’t know. Whatever it is that makes your heart beat a little faster when you think about it. Now’s the time to go for it!
And here’s the secret sauce I think you’ll discover: with each attempt at something new – whether you succeed brilliantly or fail spectacularly, you’ll feel more present in your own life, more alive in your own skin, more authentically and unapologetically you than probably you have in years.
So okay, how exactly do we turn our later years into a creative masterpiece? Oh, I’m glad you asked. I’ve got four practical steps that have worked for me and might work for you too.
First: Embrace the Beginner’s Mind. There’s something absolutely liberating about being a complete novice [naw-viss] at our age. Think about it — no one expects us to be experts at anything new we try. That means there’s no career pressure, no need to impress anyone, no timeline except our own. We’re free to make glorious, embarrassing mistakes without the weight of expectation we might’ve carried in say, our 30s and 40s.
Second: Choose Your Aging Narrative Deliberately. Here’s something powerful that took me way too long to figure out – we have enormous control over the story we tell ourselves about getting older. We can pretty much choose the life we want to lead, especially now that we’ve earned the wisdom and freedom that comes with our years.
Are you going to be the person who constantly whines about what you can’t do anymore, what hurts, what’s harder than it used to be? Trust me, I’ve caught myself sliding into that victim narrative let’s say, more times than I care to admit. I believe its better to be the person who asks what’s still possible? and what’s next on this great adventure?
The stories we tell ourselves matter more than we realize – they literally shape our reality.
Third: Deepen Relationships Intentionally. One of the unexpected gifts of reaching our age is that we no longer have to fake it with people. We can drop the masks, stop pretending to be someone we’re not, and get real with the people who matter most to us. There’s something incredibly freeing about living authentically when you realize that time is genuinely precious.
I’ve had deeper, more meaningful conversations with some of my oldest friends in the past five years than in the previous forty combined. Why? Because I realized that life’s too short to waste on endless small talk about the weather or what we watched on Netflix. When you see the time you spend with someone as extremely valuable, you start asking the questions that actually matter: Like…I don’t know. What are you most grateful for? What do you regret? What still surprises you about life? What have you learned that you wish you could pass on? Those are the kind of conversations that deepen relationships.
Fourth: Make Peace with Imperfection and Embrace Progress. This creative aging project isn’t about achieving some impossible standard of perfection – it’s about progress, growth, curiosity, and sometimes just showing up — even when that might feel hard or uncomfortable.
Some days, my creative aging project means spending twenty minutes learning Spanish on my phone and butchering pronunciations so badly that I’m probably offending all the Latin countries. Other days, it’s staring up at the sky at night, looking at the constellations and trying to figure out which is which – and failing miserably. If I was smarter, I would download an app and find them a lot faster.
The point isn’t that I’m good at Spanish or astronomy. What matters is that I’m still reaching, still curious, still willing to be bad at new things to expand my life. And let me tell you, there’s something really satisfying about trying new things and just accepting at the get-go you’re never going to be absolutely perfect at everything. C’est la vie, right?
Before we wrap up today, I want to leave you with something I call the Third Act Declaration. This is your homework if you want to give it a shot, and it just might change your life if you let it.
So take a piece of paper and write down this sentence: “In this chapter of my life, I want to be known as someone who…” and then finish that thought. Don’t overthink it. Just write from your heart, from that authentic place inside you that knows deep-down what really matters to you.
Once you’ve written it, put that piece of paper somewhere you’ll see it every day. Let those words – your words – guide your choices, your activities, your conversations, and the way you spend your precious time.
Want to know what mine says? “In this chapter of my life, I want to be known as someone who creates genuine connection with people, embraces curiosity about everything, and laughs easily – especially at myself, which, let’s be honest, gets easier every year.”
That simple declaration has changed how I approach my days. When I’m deciding whether to try something new, I ask myself: does this align with who I want to be in this chapter? When I’m in a conversation that’s going nowhere, I think about how I can create real connection. When I mess something up – which happens regularly – I try to find the humor instead of the frustration.
Remember, my fellow silver beasts, we get to choose how this story unfolds. We get to create meaning and purpose and joy from …whatever comes next. While we can’t dodge all the challenges that come with aging – the aches, the losses, the changes we didn’t ask for – but, we absolutely can decide how we’ll meet them.
So I’ll ask you again: what will your masterpiece look like moving forward? How will you make growing older and wiser the most creative adventure of your life?
I’d really love to hear your thoughts and your Third Act Declarations. Share them in the podcast comments or send me a message. Your stories inspire me, and I know they’ll inspire other listeners who are on this same journey of creative aging.
Until next time, this is Rally Preston reminding you that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, but the second-best time is right now, today. So get planting, my friends. Get creating. Get living this beautiful, messy, imperfect masterpiece of a life – and keep being the magnificent silver beasts you are! See you soon!