I’ve noticed a pattern lately, both in myself and others. People say things like:
“I wish I’d started keeping a journal five years ago, but it’s too late now.”
“If I were younger, I might start learning to be a writer, but now it’s too late in my life for that.”
Granted, there are exceptional cases where this logic is valid. “I want to be an Olympic gymnast, but I’m seventy years old.” Okay, probably not going to happen.
But 99% of the time it’s balderdash, because here’s what happens: a year later you look back and say “Well, if I’d started a year ago it would have worked out, but now it’s too late to begin.” And the irrational cycle feeds on itself.
Don’t believe it for a nanosecond. If you’re eighty-five and you start a journal, then when you’re ninety, you’ll be glad you did.
Whatever you want to do, do it today.
Brian D. Buckley 
Hear, hear!
(And, just FYI, I started that list of books that I’ve read. You’re right — it does make me feel like I’ve gained XP every time I add a new book.)
Righteous. Let me know what Level 10 is like. I hear you get a +5 to your Sounding Impressive stat. 🙂
One time I was talking with my ex-wife on the phone, and she told me she’d taken up karate.
She explained that it was just for the exercise and enjoyment, that you can’t get a black belt when you start as late as she did (in her 30s), that the people who get to the black belt start when they’re kids. Then she asked, “Am I going to try for the black belt?” “Of course you are,” I replied, “and you’re going to get it, too.” She chuckled when I said that, and told me that the guy she was living with then hadn’t figured that out yet.
And she did get the black belt.
Good for her! In our class, fifty-year-olds were still getting black belts. Pretty cool to see.