Mary, 63, recorded from a Paris park, argues that fear and social expectations trap people in lives that don't belong to them. She moved abroad for better elder care and respect, rejecting the retirement narrative. Her message: summon courage, pursue ambitious work, and express your true self without waiting for permission.
Hello, bonjour, it's Mary, and once again coming to you from my park in Paris, so you will hear park and Paris sounds in the background. I am just about to turn 63 years old as I'm recording this video for you. And that is a very interesting age because in our culture most people are encouraged to retire, encouraged to kind of slow down, take it easy, things like that. I think that is the worst idea ever. I really do. I don't understand retirement as a concept. It doesn't make sense to me except for the fact that most people are are leaving work that they don't really love doing. Not everyone, but a lot of people. And so they feel like in retirement they can finally have the life that they really want to have. Well, to me, that is a crazy idea that needs to be shelved forever. Why don't we come up with a new way of living where we don't want to retire from what we're doing every single day? What if we live a life that has meaning in it every day instead instead of maybe going somewhere and doing things that someone else is telling us to do in the way that they're telling us to do it. Now, I am not naive enough to think that everyone in the world is afforded this opportunity because of social constructs. I, I get that that's not true. However, there are a lot of us who could make different decisions, but we don't make different decisions out of fear. I don't know what the reason is, maybe fear of not having money when we're older or something something like that. But the thing is, we can make different decisions. We absolutely can, because any time in the past that we have needed an answer to a challenge we're facing, we have found it. We've simply found it. For instance, for me, I recognized that I wanted to have a different kind of life, and the kind of life that I wanted to have could not be had in the United States. So what did I do? I made the decision to move to a country that I felt aligned more with what I wanted to be doing in my life. A place where when you get older, you don't have to worry about going broke with medical bills. A place where older people are respected more. And so we have the ability to make different kinds of decisions. We just have to access our innate courage and make those choices. I don't want to see people trapped for decades and decades and decades doing things that don't light them up, that don't allow them to creatively express themselves fully, that keep them trapped inside someone else's rules, someone else's box that has been built for them. And I also don't want to be told that I am at an age where I need to slow down. I'm not slowing down. If anything, I'm speeding up. So if, if you are like me and you have a lot of ambition and you have a lot of drive and you feel this pull to create things and be different and do different things, live differently, then just do it. Don't wait for anyone to tell you that you have permission, because that will never happen. Our society isn't built that way. Society wants us to stay put. It wants us to stay in these boxes. It wants to stay— wants us to stay within these social constructs constructs that benefit someone other than you and me. And that's not what my life is for. My life is not for all of these other people who want me to be a certain way because I am a certain age. I think that's ridiculous. So when I hear people say that those of us of a certain age should think about retiring or taking it easy, I just want to really get angry. You can probably sense that there's a little anger going on here because that is so not me. And if that's not you, then just forget about that. Just forget about that message that's going out because it doesn't apply. I don't want to slow down. I don't want to take it easy. I don't want to retire. That's just not going to happen. And I am never going to slow down. I will slow down when I'm dead, basically. That's when I will stop creating. That's when I will stop living my life to the fullest. That's when I'll stop making massive changes. That's when I'll stop expressing myself. So up until then, you have this to look forward to because there's going to continue to be a whole lot more of it. I want to encourage you that if you are someone who is being told that you need to behave a certain way because you are whatever— female, male, certain age, whatever— please ignore those messages. They don't mean anything. You are not that. You are not this form that you're in. You are so much bigger than this. You have so much more in you that is really, really pushing its way to the surface. So just let it. Let yourself be who you really are. I'm not going to be ashamed or apologize for being my age and being able to walk most people under the table. I can walk miles and miles a day and not be bothered. I am not going to apologize for or be ashamed of the fact that I have massive ambition for my life and for what I want to do from this point on. I'm not going to make an excuse for any of that because that's simply what I am called to do. It's who I am called to be. If you're called to do and be more than you have been, then you have permission already to express that and to be that and to do that.
