This old lady believes every day is an opportunity to learn something new. However, some things we’d rather not know. While others are endlessly fascinating.

Then there are those times that overwhelm. Lord knows I have had more than a few of those times with my Old Lady Biz Store.

Teaching an Old Lady

I poke fun by referring to myself as an old lady. Reality is I don’t think of myself as old. Well, okay, maybe when I’m trying to get off the floor after playing with our dog, Penny. Talk about reality!

But when the calendar tells me my age, there’s no skating around my senior citizen status. My stubborn nature (a family trait) and hatred of labels cries out against the challenges of learning something new. I will not be defeated. Or at least I’ll go kicking and screaming into surrender.

So, I’ll share what some of those stumbling blocks have been. If you’d like to share any thoughts or suggestions, please do so in comments.

Social Media Wrinkles

Before beginning my freelancing career in 2008, I had no idea what social media was all about. I made the safe choice of hanging out at LinkedIn. It felt the most relatable to my long corporate career.

Eventually, I began to enjoy Twitter after initially feeling it was a whole lot of silly. Facebook became and remains a love/hate relationship. I settled on using it strictly as a personal connection to rediscovered friends and scattered family members.

After 16 years, social media platforms produced more wrinkles than this old lady. Just when you think you have a handle on making it work, along comes a major curve ball. Just think X.

X took aim at the blue bird and left a dying carcass. The only reason I’m still there are connections I value. I am hoping they migrate with the rest of us to different platforms.

LinkedIn was my go-to platform. I’ve written volumes about the networking site at my business writing blog at Simply Stated Business. Now, I’m trying to figure out if I keep my presence there only related to my business writing or do I introduce my Old Lady Biz Store?

Instagram is my latest learning curve challenge. I purposely stayed off the platform until I started the store. I simply couldn’t handle another time-suck adventure. But Instagram is different enough that I spend countless hours on what should be simple – like Highlights.

Threads (Meta’s answer to X) came tied to Instagram. It looks promising. Reminds me of San Diego when I first moved there. It’s a good experience right now but I keep waiting for the secret to get out and watch it get overrun by the wrong kind of traffic.

Teaching an Old Lady Transitions

After a long corporate career, followed by over a decade and a half of freelancing, my life today is about transitions. The question is what do I do about them?

• What do I hold on to?
• How do I know when it’s time to move on?
• What new tricks can I embrace?

How about you? What transitions have you faced in life? We all have them. What did you learn and what brought you joy?

Please share your thoughts in Comments. Together, we may figure out this thing called life.