"You're Too Old For That Man!"

That’s what a neighbor told my friend when at 46, he decided to pick up skateboarding again. He loved it as a kid and wanted to feel that joy again.

Why the instant judgment?

The story we’ve been sold is skateboarding is supposed to be for the young.

A lot of that story gets shaped by what we see or DON'T see in images.

When was the last time you saw an older adult skateboarding?

I hadn’t, until I came across Judi Oyama, a 65-year-old competitive skateboarder with 20K+ followers on Instagram. She’s been skating for more than 50 years and still competes. She asks herself, “How long can I keep going?” (You can follow. her on Instagram)

We rarely see people with gray hair skateboarding.

Or rock climbing.

Or snowboarding.

Or doing gymnastics.

Not because they can’t do these things

but because we’re not shown that they DO.

When we don’t see images of people who look like us doing an activity, it becomes easy to internalize limiting beliefs:

“That’s not for me.”

“I shouldn’t be doing that.”

“I’m too old.”

This is ageism against ourselves.

Social media is shifting that. More older adults are sharing what they love: climbing, surfing, powerlifting, hip hop dancing, skating. When they post, they help someone else expand their imagination of what aging can look like.

You don’t have to want to skateboard at 65. Seeing someone else do it may spark important questions:

“What’s possible for me?”

“What have I avoided for no reason other than age?”

Age alone is rarely the real barrier.

The narrative is.