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Claudia’s Story: Why Her 40s Are Better Than Her 20s
More time. More knowledge. More courage to try new things.
Claudia has a list of reasons why this age is better than her 20s could have ever been.
Watch the video to hear her life story.
Video Transcript:
Hi, there. I'm Claudia. I am 45 years old.
It's a lot of fun being 45. It's just the same. Actually, I started snowboarding when I was 40. I don't know why I switched from skiing to snowboarding. It was just one of those things that was on my bucket list and… I don't know. I just felt like doing it. But the advice that I always got when I was younger is that you have to finish your bucket list before a certain age, before the "30-year mark.” There's so many things that you can do on your bucket list after the 40-year mark—not a problem, so I do it.
I thought I was awful in my 20s, honestly. The standard that I had for myself was so high and I couldn't attain it. So I just felt like I was like a mouse on a treadmill... I couldn't get anywhere with it.
But now in my 40s, I really don't worry about it so much because I don't compare any longer. I just worry about myself instead of comparing myself to others.
I am also a former professional figure skater, and that certainly keeps you working. Even in professional figure skating, though you're not competing any longer, you are competing with staying in the show and having to live up to the standards, the requirements of that show. Yeah, it's a young kids' lean-body sport and after a while, you graduate out of that. Not because you can't keep up with it, but because you move on to other things in your life.
I used to be an all raw-food person but I gave that up and I started to add in more cooked foods. I feel a lot better when I have a variety of foods but I never lost my taste for good raw food. As a matter of fact, that's what I crave more than anything. It makes me feel connected to the earth. It makes me feel natural. It makes me feel like I'm the way I'm supposed to be, that I'm eating unadulterated food and I'm being an unadulterated person as well. I'm being authentic to the world because I take in things that are authentic.
My wrinkles? My wrinkles are laugh lines, wrinkles are laugh lines. I use my face. I have muscles in my face.
Oh, yeah, the next few decades is exploring everything that I didn't explore in my 20s. Everything that I thought that I had to rush to do and I was disappointed that I put it on the backburner. Well, now I can do it and I can do it in my own free time. I have the time now. I have the knowledge to do so. I have more courage. I have more friends and I have more finances to do it.
I think I have more courage to try new things now in my 40s than when I was in my 20s. Now that I am finally a full-fledged, admitted adult, I can go about things in a more reasonable, organized and efficient way.
So when I do travel, I travel so much better than I would have, haphazardly, in my 20s. Travel is the one thing that I think everybody wants to do, that's on everybody's bucket list. Wait till you're a little bit older and you'll be able to do it much better—with friends, with money, and with more energy and more knowledge.
The best part of getting older is knowing how to do things a little bit better... having some knowledge about life. In my 20s, I didn't know too much about life—though I thought I knew everything—and I ended up making a ton of mistakes which, of course, is something that you have to go through.
But in my 40s now, I can attack things with a little bit more background knowledge on how to do it. I'm not just rushing into things the way I used to—carelessly. Now, I'm more mindful of the steps that I take.
“Make sure that you do everything that you need to do while you're young.” That was the biggest thing that was really drilled into me during the '80s, was do everything before you ever have children, before you get married, because you'll never be able to do that stuff again.
Well, now I know that was actually the wrong advice because you could do so much now. The opportunities that I have now are so much greater. The facility with which I do things now is so much better that I didn't have to cram in everything and I didn't have to postpone things in life because I wanted to get everything done before a certain age.
Well, now I'm at that “dreaded age” and I feel just as fine. Actually, I feel even better because I have so many more resources to do things with. I have so much more knowledge. There's so much more time now. In other words: What are you going to do with the rest of your life now? I have so much time to do things, I might as well be healthy so I can take advantage of all those wonderful things. So that piece of advice of getting everything done before a certain age really is not that necessary because you can do so much later on in life.
Want to hear more from Claudia?
Check out her video. She’s explaining why she never tries to defy or deny her age.
Also, do you agree with Claudia? Are you loving this age far more than your 20s? Let us know in the comments.
As always, we’d love to hear from you!
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