Article September 29, 1986 Issue

No cutoff date on Life!

LUCINDA BAKER GREINER

One day, while turning the dial on the television to find another channel, I hesitated at one where several young people were being interviewed about their aspirations for the future.

The young lady being questioned at that instant wanted to be a pop music singing star. "If I'm going to make it, it will have to be soon, while I'm still in my teens," she said as I recall. "In this business, you have to do it before you're twenty. If you haven't made it by then, forget it, because it's all over! It's all downhill after you're twenty."

Afterward, thinking of the incident, I realized that the whole concept of cutoff dates can have a greater impact on our thinking than we sometimes realize. There are too many of them—subtle, dangerous, and blighting—though we are often totally unaware of them.

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