Are You Running Out Of Second Chances?
Sat in my pyjamas at 6am on a Sunday morning, I was doing what I always do. Seeing how many matches I could fit in before Liv wakes up and she hints that we could be doing something else. On a Sunday I’m usually awake for an hour before Liv stirs. This gives me enough time to watch Arsenal, Man City and the other big teams. Sometimes she lies in and I will be able to see Fulham versus Bournemouth. I don’t care about either of these teams, but it makes me feel as if I’m still connected to something I miss by being seven time zones ahead of London.
Five years ago, Saturday mornings in London started with Mike and I playing football at 10am before making our way back to the Thai restaurant next to our flat, where we would have a few pints of Kona Wave, a number 28 and we’d watch the Premier League on one of the countless flatscreens around the room.
6am, tee-total and in Bangkok, I sit watching Match of The Day. My team, Arsenal, are 3-0 versus Leeds, giving the manager a chance to bring on substitutes. “Who on earth is that?” Someone very young looking, skinny with floppy blond hair stood on the edge of the pitch, waiting for the referee to allow him on.
“A debut for 15-year-old, Max Dowman,” the commentator said. Before he went on to say with his own disbelief that he was born in 2009. 2009!
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I never thought of myself as old, but at that moment I did. I felt ancient, twice Max’s age. I’m sure many of you have had a similar thought to what I had at the time: “that’s it, I am actually too old now to physically be a professional footballer.”
Of course, I never had a chance of being a professional footballer. I was able to play football, like any other kid born in the UK. But relatively speaking, I sucked at football. As I sat watching the 15-year-old kick a piece of plastic around the pitch for £35,000 per week, I reflected on what happens to all of us.
As we move through the game of life, there are doors that close on you. Some are rudely slammed shut at birth, I couldn’t be a fighter pilot on account of my bad eyesight. Others, professional footballer being one, are quietly closed throughout your childhood. It’s also too late to be a concert pianist – that ship sailed when I gave up practicing my piano scales to instead learn how to play Coldplay and Queen.
As you exited childhood and thought about university, the glamorous options for work were replaced with a sensible list. Passionate teachers offered: lawyer, teacher, doctor, historian, economist. All these roads lead neatly to one university course. No teacher told me that I could be a tree surgeon, a watchmaker, a YouTuber, a finance bro, or a CEO. When choosing courses, I thought, “I like the idea of psychology, but it seems like a course for girls, I know, I’ll study what’s popular with boys! Economics.” I don’t think I was an awful person for pushing away Psychology, I think I was just 18.
We spend our lives narrowing our options for, “what we can do when we’re older.” We hope that we’ve gone through enough doors which truly make sense to us. Doors that fill our life with more meaning. But some doors we miss, either by being a naïve 18-year-old, “this-course-is-for-girls,” or by some other self-sabotaging behaviour.
University degree in hand, our grand dreams morph into, “who the hell is going to give me a job?”
Some people got the first job they applied for, but most of us had to apply to a bucket load before someone took us in. We end up in a job we’re thankful to have, but a million miles away from where we hoped. Dreams are shelved and replaced with goals of promotions, pay rises and specialisation in procurement technology (yes, that is not a random example).
It's only now I’m 32 that I can stop to think, “thank god my autopilot didn’t mess up too much.” In my 20s I periodically came up for air, looked around me and thought, “what the hell am I doing?” At which point, I’d dive through another door and back onto autopilot.
As I sit here, writing this at 32-years-old, I do get that strong feeling that I am at a critical juncture in my life. There’s something about your 30s that makes you realise that you’re running out of second chances. That most of the doors in your life are already behind you. A moment that forces reflection on missed opportunities. It’s a mental stumble – the decade where “if only I had…” starts to surface.
Some things can’t be undone with time, they just can’t.
But some things can – I’ve always wanted to live abroad, start a business and be a writer. In the last few years, I’ve done all three. I believe I’ve always done what I have for the right reasons. At 18, the logic might be misguided, but as you get older you start to realise what it is you truly like. At 32, working your hardest with your head down isn’t always the smartest move. That’s the point in time when you need to take stock and think, “who the hell am I?” “Am I going in the direction that I really want to go in?”
On our podcast recording last week, we discussed brain development. New studies show that we don’t have a fully formed adult brain until we are 32. Up until 32, the rational decision-making part of the brain isn’t fully formed until then. But your emotional – gut feeling – part of the brain, that is working well.
So, if you’re in your twenties, come up for air – look around and just check, does this direction feel right in your gut? Check in with some older, wiser, smarter people – ask them what they think.
If you’re in your thirties, accept that some opportunities have passed, but most things haven’t. Now is the time to spend serious time thinking, weighing up your options and building plans about what your life would really look like if it had more meaning and purpose – what would you say yes to? What would you say no to?
I won’t take you through the next thirty years, because I haven’t lived them. All I can do is observe the world around me. I’ve never once met a regretful eleven-year-old. Sure, they might regret choosing pistachio over chocolate ice cream, but real regret, no. I’ve met plenty of regretful and resentful 60-year-olds though, haven’t you? I’ve also met lots of happy 60-year-olds. I get the impression that the real difference was risk taking, to walk through the doors that genuinely excited them, regardless of what anyone else thought or felt.
If we live that way, maybe we will finish our lives without ever thinking, if only.
Deepen Your Curiosity
Read the full journal of brain stage development here. It was published in Nature in November 2025. My main takeaway is that we have a child’s brain until the age of 32.
Read something that is about the journey of life - Paulo Coehlo’s The Alchemist.
