Aunt Clara, Vision, and the Audacity of Excellence at Any Age

We have a weekend tradition in our house.??When we eat our lunch at home, we watch an episode of Bewitched.??One of the most delightful characters is Aunt Clara, an elderly witch who can never quite get her spells right.??These mishaps frequently cause humorous predicaments for Sam and Darrin, as they try to correct the damage from Clara’s well-intended but disastrous interference in their lives.??Aunt Clara meanwhile is consistently portrayed as a lovable but doddering and somewhat feeble character.??What is fascinating though is to contrast that image with the actress who played her, Marion Lorne.??Born in 1883, Lorne portrayed Aunt Clara from 1964, until her death in 1968 at the age of 84.??While Lorne had a long career in both the stage and screen, there is little doubt, that it was the role of Aunt Clara that brought her the greatest amount of fame and acclaim, resulting in her posthumously receiving the Emmy for best supporting actress.

Lorne’s life and legacy is a reminder that excellence can be achieved at any age.??Finding her greatest professional success as an octogenarian reminds us of the enduring promise and possibility that our most significant accomplishments may still be in front of us.??It’s easy in our youth to dream big and audacious goals for our life.??But it is tempting as we grow older to stop having such a bold vision for ourselves.??Whether this is caused by life dealing out disappointments or our becoming complacent in the security of middle age, this phenomenon can hit any of us.??It’s easy to forget the excitement we had as a child when we dreamed that we would become an astronaut or President.??Perhaps, when those goals went unfulfilled, we just gave up on the practice of dreaming altogether.??And yet, we are reminded that greatness is possible at any age.??Business Insider published an article entitled, “This List Proves You’re Never Too Old to Do Something Amazing” and recounts 100 victories at every age, from child prodigies to centenarians.??The list includes Teiichi Igarashi, who climbed Mount Fuji at 99 and Harry Bernstein, who wrote his first book at the age of 96 and would go on to achieve literary acclaim with several additional novels in the last six years of his life.??Remarkably, Bernstein’s first novel was initially rejected by several publishers, but he refused to let the dream go or be told that he was too old to accomplish what he had set out to achieve.

Perhaps this is an odd topic to broach with prosecutors, because our profession is one that is generally filled with ambitious and accomplished individuals who strive daily to make an impact on the world around them.??But I would dare to guess that in each of us there is an unspoken dream for our life that we have let pass us by, convinced that because it hasn’t happened to us yet, it wasn’t meant to be.??Writing a book, starting a family, getting a new degree, learning a language – the dreams are as diverse and as numerous as the number of individuals reading this column.??So too are the reasons that we have forgotten those dreams.??For some of us we had to work on other parts of our life.??For others, tragedy has interfered, and their grief is keeping us stuck in the same place.??And while I fundamentally believe that it is important to always count our blessings and to remember that we can choose happiness in any circumstance, there is a reason we dream in the first place – sometimes it takes us to the next horizon in our life and we experience a joy we never thought possible.

Imagine if Lorne had told herself at the age of 80 that she was too old to continue working as an actress.??She had experienced an accomplished and fulfilled life.??But she wouldn’t have seen that the best was yet to come and that the role which she would be known for 60 years later was just one more audition away.??What if Bernstein had allowed himself to be discouraged by the rejection letters of a few publishers and called himself an old fool???He would never have accomplished his goal of publishing a book in his mid 90s and would have deprived all of us of a model of inspiration.??Our dreams set out a compelling vision of where we can head, but we must be willing to listen to them and pursue them.??We must set aside the self-doubt that tells us we can’t accomplish something new and great.??We must be willing to put up with rejection and keep pushing ahead.??We must not worry about what others will think about the audacity of our vision.

As I spoke to a conference of Arizona prosecutors this week about purpose and goal setting, one of the things I said was that virtually everyone I know who entered our profession did so because of a desire to make an impact on the world around us.??Prosecutors tend to be an ambitious and driven people with a purpose.??But we are also not immune to getting discouraged, beat-down or made complacent by the forces of life.

This week, may you spend some time remembering the vision that once excited you that you have set aside, put on hold, or simply forgotten about.??May your dreams be big and bold and may you set out on your journey, knowing you can achieve excellence at any age.