The Longevity Question
The idea for this project started years ago when I saw a billboard on the 405 freeway that read, “The first person to live to 150 is alive today.”
I've been mulling the math ever since.
Not financial math—I've been doing that for decades. Saving, planning, and preparing for retirement as most responsible adults do.
This is a different equation.
What would it mean to live a really long human life?
Not simply survive, but remain independent. Active. Healthy. Connected to the world.
The truth is that many prepare carefully for retirement, but few prepare for longevity.
We plan our money. We neglect our purpose.
We think about healthcare. We forget about community.
We imagine a slower life. We rarely ask what we will actually do with thirty, forty, or more years.
That gap fascinates me.
Because if the math works—and for many of us it might—sixty, or seventy, may only be the midpoint of adulthood.
That question led to the project you're reading now.
The Badass Biddy Project
This site is my attempt to take that possibility seriously.
I'm calling the project Badass Biddy, partly with humor and partly with intention.
If I am lucky enough to live into my eighties, nineties, or beyond, I don't want to disappear into the background. I don't want to be irrelevant. I don't want to be the last one standing, alone.
On the contrary, I want my circle to widen as time narrows.
I want to expand.
That means taking responsibility for the things that make long lives meaningful:
- Physical strength
- Intellectual curiosity
- Social connection
- Purpose beyond career
- Courage to keep trying new things
- Refusing to apologize for taking up space
I'm not claiming expertise.
I'm running an experiment on my own life.
What You'll Find Here
This project will unfold in several ways.
I'll document my own attempt to “train for one hundred”— physically, socially, and mentally.
I will also interview people decades ahead of me: individuals in their seventies, eighties, and nineties who continue to live actively, contribute to their communities, and remain engaged with life.
I want to understand what sustains them.
What keeps them moving, hopeful, and connected.
Most of all, I want to learn what it actually takes to build a life that doesn't contract with age.
Who This Is For
If you've started doing the same quiet math about the decades ahead…
If you've begun to realize that sixty may not be the end of something, but the beginning of a long next chapter…
If you're aware of the clock, but refuse to be rushed by it—
You may already be training for one hundred too.
Many of us are looking ahead and realizing that longevity brings its own challenges:
How do we stay relevant?
How do we avoid loneliness?
How do we keep growing when the world expects us to slow down?
Rather than wrestle with those questions alone, I'm choosing to explore them openly.
An Invitation
This isn't a finished philosophy.
It's a working experiment.
If you're someone who believes that the later decades of life can still be vibrant, purposeful, and connected, then you're welcome here.
The journey has already started.
And like any long road, it's better traveled with company.