The Quiet Courage of Growing Older

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”

—Mary Anne Radmacher

We often think of courage as bold, brash, and loud—storming the gates, taking the stage, starting the business. But there’s another kind of courage. A quieter kind. One that whispers instead of shouts.

I think it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to grow old.

When you're young, life is a flurry of open doors and unasked questions:

What will I become?

Who will I love?

Where will I live?

Will I be happy?

Each answer arrives with time. Some appear in joy, while others in heartbreak. But eventually, those questions—so loud in our youth—settle. And what we’re left with is something else entirely.

As we age, our questions shift.

They become quieter... and heavier.

How long do I have?

Will I age with grace or with pain?

How can I keep laughing, even as I let go?

What do I want to leave behind?

It’s no longer about building a life. It’s about completing it with intention—stitching the final pieces into a quilt that tells our story. Not just our jobs, titles, or milestones, but our values, our memories, and our moments of kindness and resilience.

And it takes tremendous bravery to face that—to live with curiosity in a world that has already given you so many answers, and still be willing to ask new ones.

So if you find yourself at the end of the day saying, “I’ll try again tomorrow,”—that is not defeat. That is grace.

That is courage.

And that is what aging boldly looks like.