Persistence alone is not the key characteristic. What you persist at matters. Late bloomers often seem to be chasing phantom goals, or no goals at all. They might have a sense of some future success, however vague, and they’re willing to let current opportunities pass them by in pursuit of the bigger goal – with really no guarantee of success at all. This is not just how late-life success is made. This the cause of much failure and disappointment too. In short, late bloomers are often quite weird. And when fate intervenes, their weirdness pays off.

– Henry Oliver

It all seems for not right? Those hobbies. The scribbled lines of poetry. The rewatching of a scene or entire movie uncovering missed gems. Paths of code to nowhere. The book of dinosaurs you return to over and over.

Dismiss not.

These are keys to doors you haven’t discovered yet.

Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024. p.