"I have accepted myself, with my strengths and limitations, so that the judgment of others is not something that bothers me. My colleagues were really interested and curious.”
Lyn Slater, the Accidental Icon influencer with more than 776k followers who have revalued the ageing process, dismantled her legend and exclusively revealed the true secret of her success, which she claims has nothing to do with chance and everything to do with her character, self-acceptance and hard work.
Lyn always combined her work as a university professor of Law and Social Welfare and continued to do so until she retired. That was when, according to Lyn, some photographers located in front of the "Lincoln Center" mistook her for a model during New York Fashion Week in 2016 and shared a photograph of her on social networks that catapulted her, at 63 years old, as an accidental icon for millions of women of all ages who realised you can physically grow older without complexes and without losing your style.
She has taken down the misconception that half of the
world has about Accidental Icon, and she is not going to stop, “I don't like
that story because it is a fairy tale, and it discards the fact that success
requires a lot of work, dedication and risk. None of those factors are
recognized in a story like that. It's so misleading for young people and older
people who want to make a change... My skills as a teacher and social
worker were what I believe made me ultimately
successful. I think it was as much my attitude as my clothes.”
“What made me successful is my curiosity, critical thinking, flexibility, resistance, ability to adapt, collaboration, hope and optimism.”
Simply placing yourself in the right public space has been a way to deal with age discrimination. And, for Slater, “There is a chronological age, which is the number of years you have lived, and a perceived age, which is the age you experience internally. Perceived age is fluid and can change from one day to the next.” And, like anything else in life, it doesn't consider "ageing to be good or bad, it just is that way and that's how I relate to it— as a fact."
It is surely easier now than in your grandmother's times, at least in developed countries, according to her theory, “The world has changed at an astonishing speed, and we are living longer and healthier lives if we are privileged." Old narratives such as retirement, senior living communities, illness and disability are no longer as relevant as they were in the past. “We should not be making policies or decisions using old paradigms, nor should we categorise people by their year of birth, use perceived age as a category to design or sell clothes," she argues.
The only thing that is relevant about human beings is “the possibility of reinventing ourselves while we are alive”, as Lyn claims, “Because change has accelerated at such a rapid pace, people need to reinvent themselves at all ages and often the old ways of doing things become obsolete. So, reinventing yourself is going to be necessary much more frequently than in the past. “You need to have courage, take risks, be a lifelong learner and be very open to change," as well as “to the ideas and points of view of young people, since they are the experts of today.”
"You will have many new opportunities and adventures like me if you are open to seeing things differently.”
By:
Elisabeth Iborra and Revathi Sreejith
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