‘I accept myself for who I am’: people at 40 on what life has taught them so far

In my 40th year, full of contemplations about this age, I went on a quest to find 40 others born in the same year as me to discover how they were feeling about it. I photographed friends and reached out to complete strangers from different parts of the UK and beyond.

We have a shared bond of growing up as older millennials, having lived out our childhoods pre-internet and with similar cultural references, yet each with divergent backgrounds and life experiences. In the process of finding them and listening to their insights, I discovered more about myself.

Abena Oppong-Asare, turned 40 last February

My 40th birthday occurred the same day that the Ukrainian president visited parliament. When I was a student I had no desire to get into politics. I wanted to work in human rights or maybe fashion using African prints, but whilst I was doing my master’s I did some work experience with the leader of the House of Lords at the time, Valerie Amos, who was also from Bexley. I remember walking around this place and feeling quite intimidated, but she made it seem like anyone could get in here. I’m really grateful to be a representative of my constituency [Oppong-Asare is the MP for Erith and Thamesmead] and to be able to speak for them. It’s my biggest achievement, especially being a person of colour, and that’s why I encourage school visits because many people don’t think they could get in here growing up – I didn’t – but it’s really worth believing in.

As you get older, you get more comfortable in your skin. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that I can’t run as fast as I used to and I’d like to start looking after myself a bit more as I’m always so busy rushing around and working late nights.

When I was younger I was given the advice to always go for things and never think something is unachievable. Life is short so it’s better to try because what’s the worst that could happen? Rejection isn’t the end of the world. Love your mistakes, see them as a good thing and never pull the ladder up for other people.

Brooke Kinsella MBE, turned 40 in July

I thought 40 would be “Peak Brooke” – an age where I was going to feel really grown-up and settled and confident. Obviously it’s not like that at all and not a huge amount changed.

Particularly as a woman I think you live life with impostor syndrome and I really thought turning 40 would make that disappear. Sometimes I look around wondering who the grown-up in a situation is and then realise: oh, it’s me.

Having worked since I was seven as an actress and then following other paths, I’m ready to find more balance in my life. I have two young children who I want to spend more time with but I also want to take more time for myself and settle into being Brooke. As a mum you are constantly having to provide mentally, physically, emotionally for other people, so it would be nice to focus on my own needs a bit more too going forward.

I received my MBE for campaigning [against knife crime] aged just 26, a year after my brother Ben died. There was this ridiculous turning point in my life and I was thrown into a world I didn’t have any control over. It seems so young to have dealt with all that we did and my 40-year-old self looks back at my 20-year-old self with a lot of pride. It scares the life out of me now, I think I was much braver then.

Duncan Gillies, turned 40 in May

For 16 years I worked for a recording studio specialising in video game dialogue. Growing up, I was very into audio technology and video games and so this was a dream job for me. I started as a runner and worked my way up to eventually become the head of a department. However, I slowly lost the passion I had for it and for several years I had no idea what to do about it. Like many others, I used lockdown as an opportunity to bake more and more, and I soon found it to be the part of the week I looked forward to most. Eventually I decided it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my working life.

If you are thinking about changing your career you need to forget worrying about your age. The years will continue to pass whether you make a change or not, so you may as well be a happy 45-year-old starting out, rather than a 45-year-old stuck in a job that makes you miserable.

My 20-year-old self would absolutely blow their mind if they saw me now, getting up at the crack of dawn to bake bread every day – he’d wonder: what the hell happened to you? But I’m much happier now, and proud of myself for making the leap.

Ami Amin, turned 40 in July

In my twenties and thirties it felt like a rush to progress up the career ladder. Now I’m entering another profession, which will take five years to qualify in, but I don’t mind, I don’t feel part of the race any more.

Natalie Harris, turned 40 in December

As you get older you care less about what everyone else is doing and you start to perceive life through a lens of happiness. At 30, people in my life were settling down and having children but I was nowhere near that. The world was only starting to open up to me but due to society I couldn’t help comparing myself.

I have had two restarts in my life – the first one was leaving school, when I started to feel really comfortable in my own skin, then at 21 this came to a halt when I was in a motorbike accident, which completely changed the direction of my life, let alone my outgoing personality. I went from being out every weekend, working or partying, to rarely going out and questioning every move before leaving this house, all due to me becoming a below-knee amputee. From showing off my body to covering it up to an inch of its life, my world had changed and not for the better. While everyone else was embracing their twenties I was trying to put myself together. It was only in my late twenties and thirties I found myself again.

I have not held a blue badge for over 15 years and I don’t classify myself as disabled. I can more or less do the same things as anyone else and will push myself further than most. When people ask me how I feel about turning 40, I don’t feel it and don’t look it. Age has no relevance – you will never hear me say I’m too old to do this or that. Just be yourself, that’s all you can be.

Ivan de Lucca, turned 40 in November

Forty has got me questioning: if I was young again, what would I want to achieve by this age? I’ve lived my life on the edge, I never fell off it, but if you don’t fall off the edge, at some point you start thinking about what you have and who you are now. Over the last five years I’ve settled down a lot, I’ve got into cooking and staying in and spending nights doing nothing, but before that I was very extreme and nihilistic. I came to London from Brazil and have travelled all over the world living a crazy life and putting myself in dangerous situations – even the last time I went back to Brazil I got shot at – so my greatest achievement is that I’m still alive now.

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, turned 40 in March

My 30s have been a brilliant decade and I’ve had some amazing times over the last 10 years but I’m looking forward to building on that and not to pigeonhole myself. I’d like to age disruptively – I want to spend my forties doing things that are more risky than anything I’ve done previously.

My second book, The Gender Bias, was published just before my birthday and I’m already excited about what I might write next. It’s an amazing way to get messages out there and for me the ability to write something down, with all the context and rationale and the argument, is really exciting, it captures your thoughts for others who are interested in them.

Yannick Lalardy, turned 40 in July

You only have one lifetime to achieve what you can and you have to play the cards you’re dealt. If I can do just one photography project a year at a really high level, by the time I’m 50 I’ll have 10, which is a really decent body of work. As long as I can survive financially and carry on doing my personal work, I’ll be happy.

When I see 20-year-olds now, they have their youth but they’ve got more worries than I had at their age and I don’t envy that. I don’t own a place and as a freelancer I’m constantly thinking about how I’m going to pay rent and pay taxes, so turning 40 isn’t in my thoughts, but if I look back to my 30th birthday I was single, living on a sinking boat and working as a waiter.

Cassie and Connie Powney, turned 40 in March

Cassie: In my 40th year, I feel like I’ve only just mastered the art of not being too hard on myself regarding what I feel I “should” be doing. Social media gives you such a window into other people’s achievements. In the world of beauty journalism, you always see events you’re not going to or publications you’re not writing for, but staying in my lane finally feels enough for me.

I’ve always been ambitious and set myself goals with my writing, and both of us with our acting. We’ve managed to reach a point so many people can’t even imagine reaching. So many talented actors don’t get to walk on a red carpet or hold a script on a film set with actors they’ve watched on TV. It’s something we look back on and say: wow, that was just so much fun. We joined Hollyoaks when we were around 20 and it was an amazing time. I’ve still got a lot of career goals I want to achieve with my writing, and maybe a bit of acting again one day, but for now I’m content being present for my kids.

Connie: I didn’t like the sound of turning 40, but I actually find it quite a relief not having to strive for the same things any more. At 20 we thought we would be acting for the rest of our lives – Hollyoaks to Hollywood! But we secured secondary careers and got the plan Bs we wanted. Some people aren’t lucky enough to get their plan A or plan B. We do such different jobs now, which is quite nice because I think people assume we’re cardboard cut-outs of each other. We are very similar, but very different too.

Naomi Arefaine, turned 40 in May

My partner and I regularly talk about kids and joke about how we’d make excellent parents. We’ve been together for about a year, which is not an ideal amount of time to be thinking about having a baby, but our connection is so much deeper than any of my previous relationships. In my gut I always wanted the privilege of going on that journey, but since turning 40 it’s interesting to notice that the urgent hormonal thrust to make this happen is fading and there’s a small lingering fear that the chance has already been taken away from us.

Another consideration to having children is my father. He’s been diagnosed with dementia and being around children really awakens his soul. Both my parents would make incredible grandparents but I know that it would be so beneficial to his disease progression too. My parents are wonder-humans. Growing up in the UK was great but came with challenges. I was born in Ethiopia but when the Eritrean war of independence broke out we immigrated here as refugees and stayed. Despite my father working as a doctor, being accepted was hard and my parents definitely struggled to assimilate fully into the culture because of racism.

Reaching 40, I have a greater acceptance and true love for my heritage and the person it’s made me. I often get into “heated” conversations with other Ethiopians about my inability to speak Amharic fluently, but I can understand it, I’m learning and I can hold my own. A younger me would be consumed with embarrassment and shrink away from confrontation, but now I own it.

Joel Evans, turned 40 in September

Since the age of 36 it feels like I’ve been mentally preparing for turning 40 and, you know, it wasn’t as harrowing as I thought.

I worry about my health deteriorating and even though I don’t have any aches or pains now, I know that will come. I’ve managed to sort out my weight through healthy eating, and recently joined a gym because I need to get strong. I DJ for private events around the world and the late nights are taking longer to recover from.

Going up tower blocks in Bow and breaking into crack dens to play on pirate radio in the early 2000s was something I took for granted at the time. Looking back, the kind of sway that pirate radio had over every single person driving a car with it blaring out in the 90s and early 2000s was a cultural phenomenon within the UK like nothing else. It was a real moment in time and I feel like I was part of a scene that no longer exists and won’t ever really happen again.

Sachini Imbuldeniya, turned 40 in April

It’s worrying how many people see life as a box-ticking exercise and often make life-changing decisions for the wrong reasons. At 40 I’m husband- and child-free by choice but a lot of people find that concept strange. I get told: ‘Aww, don’t worry, it’ll happen soon.’

In my teens, twenties and early thirties I cared a lot about what others thought, constantly comparing myself to everyone around me, but now, frankly, I don’t give a shit. At this age I feel free – I accept myself for who I am and I’ve made peace with the fact that not everybody else will.

As a woman of colour from a working-class background and with a disability, I drew the short straw on marginalised groups. Less than 4% of the jobs in media go to people who look like me, so I’ve been on a mission to reshape the creative industry.

I founded an artist agency that champions under-represented talent and I have tried to be a visible role model for emerging creatives from similar backgrounds who want to enter this industry.

Michelle Bishop, turned 40 in November

There’s a line in Peter Pan which talks about how kids are always wanting to be older and adults always want to be younger. These days I can take work a bit too seriously and I think my 40-year-old self could definitely learn from the younger me, who was a really excited girl.

This year I’m travelling for 90 days around Europe with my partner. It’s the first time in my entire career that I’ve blocked out the time to make a plan like that because I’ve always feared missing out on jobs. Even though it’s tough saying no to auditions for work during that time, I know I won’t regret going. At this age you are more aware that you have the people close to you for a finite time and time is precious.

You have to be pretty realistic working in this business and having too many dreams about playing specific roles can lead to a lot of disappointment. I’ve never picked the roles, they’ve always picked me, and that’s led me to have some wonderful experiences playing parts I never knew existed.

Louise Haywood-Schiefer, turned 40 in July

“I’m not freaking out but …” would be my quote for turning 40. I found my brain mulling over all sorts of things a few months before I reached it. They weren’t all negative thoughts, but worrying about my parents’ health and my career were particular concerns for me. I felt like I still hadn’t quite got back to the level of working I’d been at before having my son, which had then rolled into the pandemic, so I began Fortyfied to get myself back out in the world, doing what I love. It has been an utter joy to meet all these people and embark on what became a cathartic “self-help” voyage around the country.

I’ve been a photographer for 15 years and have had many highlights during this time, including photographing the Dalai Lama, but the year in which I turned 40 ended up being the best one yet and saw me realise two of my all-time career goals. I had my image of Kwajo Tweneboa exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Taylor Wessing photo prize and I photographed an extensive food range campaign for Holland & Barrett, which saw my work on billboards and in stores around the country. So far, 40 rocks.