AT 52, I AM STILL A STUDENT AND MY CURIOSITY HAS NO EXPIRY DATE
I call myself “the eternal student.” I love learning, and the more I learn, the more addictive it seems to become. I often joke that dementia doesn’t stand a chance with me because I’m constantly keeping my brain active.
I’m still endlessly curious about people, new ideas, places, and possibilities. I’m someone who loves to create, organise, bring people together, and watch an idea turn into something real.
I’m 52, but I don’t feel like someone who has “arrived” at some final destination. Quite the opposite — I feel there is still so much interesting ahead of me. The difference is that now I know much better what I want, what I don’t want, and who I want to spend my time with.
And perhaps today I no longer feel such a strong need to prove anything to anyone. What matters much more to me is to live in a way that keeps life interesting for me.
When I was twenty, 52 seemed almost unimaginably far away. I probably thought that by this age a woman would have everything figured out — her life neatly in place, all the big decisions already made, and a calm certainty about exactly what she was doing. Now I’m 52, and the reality is quite different. We are still figuring things out, starting over, making mistakes, falling in love with new ideas, changing our plans, and continuing to dream. The biggest difference is that in my twenties, I had more time but less confidence. Today, I’m much more aware of how valuable time is, but I also have something I didn’t have then — experience and courage. If I had had the confidence at 25 that I have at 52… I might have been dangerous.
I think what frightened me more was not a particular number, but the idea of what society expects from a woman at a certain age — that at some point I should become calmer, more cautious, less ambitious. But when I turned 50, almost the opposite happened. I realised that I don’t have to make myself smaller just because the number has become bigger. Turning 50 actually gave me a sense of freedom. You spend much less time thinking, “What will people say?” and much more time asking yourself, “What will this bring to my life?”
Perhaps no one has ever said it directly to my face, but women receive this message in so many subtle ways — that once you reach a certain age, it is somehow too late for certain things: to change careers, start a business, go back to studying, dress differently, travel, fall in love, or simply begin something completely new. I don’t agree with that.
If, at 52, there is something I want to do and I have the energy, curiosity, and opportunity to do it, why should the date on my birth certificate be an argument against it? What would frighten me far more would be to look back one day and say, “I really wanted to do it, but I didn’t because I thought I was too old.” I don’t want to measure my life by the things I’m supposedly too old for. I want to measure it by the things I still have the curiosity, courage, and energy to pursue.
In my twenties, I could achieve a great deal through energy and ambition. Today, I can achieve much more through experience. I’ve learned not only how to start something, but also how to recognise what is actually worth starting. I can say “no” to a good opportunity if I feel it isn’t right for me. And I no longer make decisions simply because I feel the need to prove something to someone.
Another important difference is that today I understand people much better. Through years of leading businesses and teams, I’ve learned that the person who speaks the loudest or runs the fastest is not always the one who achieves the most. Sometimes you can accomplish far more by listening, bringing the right people together, and giving them the space to grow. The twenty-year-old Marika probably wanted to do everything herself. The Marika I am today understands how much more can be achieved when you have the right people around you. In my twenties, I had the energy to prove myself. At 52, I have the experience to choose.
Yes, and I think that sometimes we impose these limits on ourselves even before society has the chance to impose them on us. We tell ourselves, “At my age, that’s no longer appropriate,” “It would be foolish to start something new now,” or “What will people think?” But who actually decided on these deadlines?
I think one of the most beautiful things that comes with age is the ability to gradually free yourself from these rules. If you want to study — study. If you want to start a business — start one. If you want to travel — go. If you want to wear something beautiful — wear it. Age should never become a permission slip — or a prohibition — for living your life. The only boundary I increasingly respect is my own inner sense: Does this make me happy? Does this matter to me? Because sometimes the biggest age limits aren’t written in our passports. They exist in our minds.
I haven’t become less ambitious. I think I’ve simply become ambitious in a different way. In the past, ambition was more about results — building something, achieving something, proving myself, doing more. Today, the question that matters much more to me is: What lasting value will this create? I’m increasingly drawn to entrepreneurship and new ideas. I love seeing something I’ve helped create continue to grow and thrive even without me.
And there is one ambition that has definitely become stronger with age — to never stop developing myself. I never want to reach a point where I think, “Now I know everything.” Quite the opposite: the more experience I gain, the more fascinating everything I still don’t know becomes. I used to want to prove that I could. Today, I want to create something that truly matters.
Has there been a moment in your life when you decided to reinvent yourself rather than simply continue on the expected path?
I don’t think a person wakes up one morning and says, “From today, I’m going to be a different Marika.” In my life, reinvention has happened more gradually — and more than once. There have been moments when everything looked good from the outside — work, achievements, stability — yet inside, I knew that what had brought me to that point would not necessarily take me to the next one. That is when you need the courage to change something. Sometimes it’s your work, sometimes the people around you, sometimes your priorities — but perhaps the hardest thing to change is the way you see yourself.
Over the years, I’ve realised that you don’t have to remain the same woman you once became for the rest of your life. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to start again. You are allowed to want something different. To me, that isn’t rejecting who I was. It is growth. We are not obligated to spend our entire lives being the person we once became.
When we are young, we tend to see beauty much more in outward appearance. I probably noticed perfect skin, a beautiful figure, hair, and facial features much more than I do today. Having worked in the beauty industry for many years, I’ve seen a great deal of this external side of beauty.
Today, to me, a beautiful woman is someone who has life in her eyes. She may not be perfect, but she has energy, curiosity about life, self-respect, and something uniquely her own. I admire women who do not become invisible as they grow older — women who continue to dress beautifully, laugh, flirt with life, stay curious, keep learning, and express their femininity in whatever way feels authentic to them.
Today, beauty to me is not youth. Beauty is vitality.
Self-respect, inner calm, and the confidence to be yourself. When we are younger, we are often fascinated by charisma, outward success, and confidence. Today, I’m much more drawn to a woman who doesn’t need to be the loudest person in the room in order to be noticed.
I admire women who can genuinely celebrate another woman’s success instead of seeing it as a threat — women who know how to support, share, and simply say, “You’re doing great.” To me, that is a beautiful sign of maturity: you no longer need to make another woman smaller in order to feel bigger yourself. At this stage of my life, I’m also very passionate about golf, and it is teaching me something I still need to practise — calmness, patience, and emotional self-control. Golf has become a kind of meditation for me. It teaches me to stay composed when things don’t go as planned, to reset, and to focus on the next shot rather than the last one. And perhaps that is why I love it so much — it is also a space where my mind becomes quiet enough for new ideas to appear.
I want to look good, not necessarily younger. Of course, I take care of myself. I love beauty treatments, beautiful clothes, and everything that helps a woman feel good about herself. And I’m certainly not going to give any of that up just because someone might say, “You should accept your age.” To me, accepting your age does not mean that you should stop taking care of yourself.
Paradoxically, right now I have the longest and thickest hair I’ve ever had in my life, and I find myself thinking, “Let’s see where this goes.” Hair is actually one of those things that often changes as we get older and can distinguish us from women in their twenties and thirties. So in a way, I’m enjoying challenging that expectation too.
At the same time, I don’t want to look like the 32-year-old version of myself at 52. I want to look good at 52. The question I find much more interesting is not, “How young do I look?” but rather, “How good do I feel in my life?”
I think the difference lies in the motivation behind it. If I take care of myself because I appreciate my body, my face, and my life — and because I genuinely want to care for them — then that comes from self-love. But if every new wrinkle causes panic or makes me feel that something is wrong with me, then it is no longer about self-care. It is being driven by fear.
Beauty treatments and self-care can give a woman so much — confidence, pleasure, and a sense of wellbeing — but they should never become a battle against yourself. I want to take care of myself not because I’m afraid of growing older, but because I’m planning to live an interesting life for many years to come.
To things and people that unnecessarily drain my energy. In the past, I often felt that I had to say yes, explain myself, justify my decisions, and try to be good to everyone. Today, I understand that saying “no” is not rude. It is a conscious choice about where I invest my time and energy. I’ve learned to say no to meaningless relationships, to projects in which I see no real purpose, and to situations where I constantly have to prove my worth.
At this stage of my life, my time has become far too valuable to spend it simply out of politeness. These days, I often ask myself one very simple question before saying yes to something: “What will this bring to my life?”
To myself. To new ideas. To travel. To people. To spontaneous decisions. To things that may not always be practical, but that bring me joy. More and more often, I allow myself to say “yes” to something even before I know exactly how I’m going to make it happen. I’ve learned that I don’t always need to have the entire path mapped out before taking the first step. In my twenties, courage meant not being afraid to take risks. Today, courage sometimes means something quite different — giving myself permission to choose what I truly want.
I’m just as ambitious as I’ve always been — only the way I measure ambition has changed. In the past, I tended to measure it more by achievements. Today, I care much more about impact and purpose. I’m interested not only in what I can still achieve for myself, but also in what I can create, what I can influence, who I can help grow, and what I can leave behind. So I wouldn’t say that my ambitions have become smaller. If anything, they may have become even bigger — they’re simply no longer just about me.
I think that at first, there may simply be silence. For many women, for years, the answers have been very clear when it comes to what their children need, what their family needs, what their work, business, or colleagues need. But the question “What do I want?” can turn out to be surprisingly difficult. And I don’t think we need to immediately come up with some great new life mission. We can start with very simple questions: Where do I want to go? What would I like to learn? Who do I want to spend my time with? What do I no longer want to do?
Perhaps one of the privileges of the second half of life is that we can finally live a little less according to “I have to” and a little more according to “I want to.” We spend half our lives asking, “What do I have to do?” Perhaps the second half is finally the time to ask, “What do I want?”
I would ask her, “Too old for what? And who decided where that age limit should be?” If you start something new at 52 and dedicate the next ten years to it, by the time you are 62, you will have ten years of experience in something new. If you don’t start, you will still be 62. Time will pass either way. So the much more important question is not, “Am I too old to start?” but rather: “What do I want to have experienced, learned, and achieved during those ten years?”
I have so many ideas, and I hope that ten years from now, I still will. Professionally, I want to create things that have a life beyond a single project. I’m still deeply interested in entrepreneurship, the international environment, and the opportunity to bring people and ideas together. But over the next ten years, I also want to experience more. To travel. To meet interesting people. To learn something that may have absolutely nothing to do with my work. And to leave room for spontaneity. I don’t want the next ten years to become simply another ten productive years. I want them to be ten truly alive years.
About life itself. I hope I’ll be proud that I didn’t postpone a trip because there was too much work. That I didn’t put off meeting someone I wanted to see. That I didn’t leave an idea for some distant future simply because the timing didn’t seem perfect.
I remember how our parents and grandparents used to keep their beautiful plates hidden away for “better times” or special occasions. They would sit there on the shelf, gathering dust, waiting for those special days — and sometimes those days never came.
There will always be more work to do. There will always be more plans to make. But I understand more and more that there are things in life for which “later” is never guaranteed. So when I look back on this chapter of my life one day, I hope I’ll be able to say: I didn’t save my life for later. I used the beautiful plates. At 52, I don’t feel as though the best part of my life is already behind me. Quite the opposite. I’m genuinely curious to discover what is still ahead.
You can meet Marika HERE
