The Value of Reinventing Oneself: Challenges and Dreams Can Be Fulfilled, Even in Our Final Third of Life
"Taking stock of one’s life is positive and necessary. From a certain age onward, it's good to start asking yourself whether you are carrying out your life project in accordance with your intentions and capabilities,” Dr. Àngel Guirado, psychologist and president of the Girona delegation of the Official College of Psychology of Catalonia, told me in a report on this issue. This life review may involve significant changes, such as a divorce, moving to a new city, or cutting ties with toxic family relationships. But it can also involve smaller — though still relevant — steps, like exploring a long-desired hobby or traveling to a still-pending destination.
At 67, Carme Rami returned to an old fantasy: dancing classical ballet. She did it with no ambition other than to move and feel. Today, ballet is part of her daily life. “It has been a gift, as if life were giving me a second chance,” she told us in an interview in the “After 60” section of La Vanguardia. Teresa Sánchez, now 81, says that starting to write novels at age 60 brought back “the thrill of continuing to dream” after a life devoted to family and home.
With the new landscape of longevity, more and more people are daring to rewrite their biographies later in life, to refocus the final third of their existence. This willingness to rethink one’s life may arise from enthusiasm, but also from emptiness, grief, or a sense of stagnation. Sometimes it's not about “starting from scratch,” but allowing oneself a new version of who they are. Often, it is in this phase — in maturity or old age, no longer burdened by family responsibilities and with more available time — that an unknown freedom appears, one absent in earlier stages. What drives these late-life turns? And why do they still surprise us?
For a long time, old age was considered a time of closure, of retreat, of “this is who I am, and this is who I’ll be until the end.” Life narratives seemed to crystallize at a certain age, as if from that point on, one merely lived out what had already been written. But this view is now being questioned. In Spain, 31% of people aged 65 to 74 used the internet in 2023 for learning activities, according to Eurostat. A study published by the Centre for Ageing Better (United Kingdom), in collaboration with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Manchester School of Architecture, titled Locked out: A New Perspective on Older People's Housing Choices, shows that more and more older people are moving for personal project reasons: seeking more active communities, living in rural environments, or starting new chapters in another country. According to the latest European Social Survey (ESS), analyzed by Funcas for International Volunteer Day, 15% of Spaniards over the age of 65 have participated in volunteer work.
New university studies, learning languages, volunteering, writing, art, activism, late divorces, new romantic relationships, travel… A longer life also opens up unexpected windows.
The thinker Charles Handy, Irish author and philosopher specializing in organizational behavior and management, spoke of the “second curve”: a new life stage that emerges once we’ve descended from the first — the professional career, parenting, social obligations — and discover another way of living with purpose. More free, more chosen, sometimes more authentic.
Psychologist Laura Carstensen, founder of the Stanford Center on Longevity, points out that emotional intelligence becomes sharper in old age, impulsive decisions decrease, and the ability to prioritize what truly matters increases. In other words: changing later in life can also mean changing for the better.
“Is this the right time?” many of us have asked ourselves — even in later years. “I suggest not asking whether it is the right time, because there is no right time: we should ask ourselves whether we have the need,” advises Pep Marí, psychologist and author of Vital Decisions (Plataforma Actual). The expert suggests paying attention to how long that inner voice suggesting movement, change, or decision lasts. “A whim goes away after a few days or weeks; a need lasts until it’s fulfilled. If it disappears from your head easily, it’s a fabrication, self-deception. If months or years pass and you still long for it, it’s a true need.”
Changing after 60 is not an act of bravery or eccentricity. It’s a way of staying alive in the time we have left. Because in longevity, life is not only extended in years — but in possibilities.
