Alese Johnston was relaxing on the sofa one Sunday morning, browsing through the Wall Street Journal, when she stumbled upon an article by a 60-year-old author who believed he had become dull – constantly narrating the same stories to his friends. “I do that,” Johnston thought. “So a few weeks later, when I reached 70, I decided to take on 70 new challenges throughout the year.”
Johnston established a website, Fabulous70.com. She created a spreadsheet and began to populate it with ideas. The sole guideline was: “It had to be something I had never done before.” Her first “first” was to enjoy a nem – a variety of spring roll – at a supper club in her home city of Little Rock, Arkansas.
She also participated in a conference to discover her erotic blueprint – “it challenged a lot of limits, but was life-changing” – and subsequently states she has “experienced some of the finest moments of intimacy in my life.” Over the following year, she engaged in a pole-dancing class and took a flying lesson, savored her dessert prior to the main course, explored new trails, created a meme coin, and underwent a Brazilian wax.
From that point onward, whenever she gathered with friends, “the first question they would ask was: ‘What new experience did you have this week?’ I couldn’t even visit the chiropractor without having to update them on my latest activities.”
“We shouldn’t make excuses for ourselves,” she reflects. “I had no idea how frequently I had been doing that.”
Two years prior to starting her endeavor, Johnston experienced a divorce. She and her spouse had spent three decades together. “But I just realized I wasn’t being true to myself. It became essential to investigate who I genuinely was at this stage in life, and to be frank with myself,” she expresses.
“I believe I was always aiming to be sensible. With regard to my time and my financial resources.” Until reaching her late 60s, she refrained from going out alone whenever her partner chose to stay in. “You always encounter that question: ‘Where’s your husband?’”
Therapy was beneficial. She maintained a journal. “One of the questions I had to confront was: what do I desire? That was not something I’d dedicated much effort to. It was transformative to finally sit down and be honest about my own wishes” – rather than the expectations of her partner, daughter, or grandchild. “That unlocks a lot of insight,” she adds.
One morning, she shares, she awakened and understood: “I don’t require anyone else’s approval. It’s perfectly fine to be a bit reckless. The world won’t collapse if you venture out on your own. So now, that’s what I do.”
The anxiety of being irresponsible had always lingered. “If you want to delve into my upbringing, my dad wielded the quickest belt in the west,” she remarks. “You didn’t challenge him. Punishments were guaranteed. That was simply the dynamic of our home. Thus, I was often a bit timid.”
Johnston grew up on a farm, located 45 miles from her current residence, and was “afraid of my own shadow.” Even today, she experiences a “kneejerk reaction to flinch. You always assume you’re in trouble for making a mistake. Learning to release that fear is a significant breakthrough.”
Contrary to her father’s wishes, she attended college in her late teens, pursuing studies in art. Her first marriage, in her 20s, ended quickly. To enable Johnston to be self-sufficient as a single mother, her grandmother sent her to evening classes. “I learned to code back in the 1980s, before it became common,” Johnston recalls.
She transitioned into a banking consultant role, assisting in writing code for the large mainframe systems used by banks, managing data during acquisitions or sales. Presently, she is an entrepreneur on the verge of launching a new initiative designed to alleviate loneliness and promote longevity.
Johnston, now 71, has completed her 70 missions, yet she continues to seek out new adventures. “This has become my new identity,” she states. “I’m significantly more exploratory. I flourish through acquiring new knowledge. I feel like I’ve discovered my true self. This is genuinely the finest period of my life.”
