Georgia O’Keeffe Didn’t Need Their Approval. Neither Do You.
Georgia O’Keeffe didn’t burn it all down. She just quietly walked away and created something far more true for herself. This is what a midlife rebellion can really look like.
Georgia O’Keeffe walked away from New York at 46. She didn’t blow it all up in one dramatic act; she just quietly started spending more time in New Mexico, letting the dust and silence seep into her bones.
The art world didn’t understand, but she wasn’t asking them to.
When you’re building a life that actually fits, it won’t always look “successful” to people still trying to climb the wrong ladder.
Don’t let their doubts become yours.
Right On Time is our weekly series of lessons in courage, clarity, and change for those rewriting their story — in two minutes or less.
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By the 1920s, Georgia O’Keeffe was already a celebrated painter in New York, exhibited alongside the biggest names, featured in glossy art magazines, her work fiercely championed by her much-older husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
She had made it. And yet…
It started with an escape to the desert, first for just a few weeks. Then longer. One day, she just… stayed.
Taos, Abiquiú, Ghost Ranch. Harsh light. Raw edges. Strange bones in the dirt. The landscape cracked her open in a way polite galleries never could.
People said she was running from the city, or maybe from her marriage. Certainly from the art scene.
Maybe she was. But maybe she was also running toward something only she could see.
O’Keeffe’s rebellion didn’t come in a neat package. She didn’t leave her husband officially until she was 50. She didn’t explain herself in a press release. She simply followed a pull she couldn’t ignore, and built a whole new chapter that didn’t ask for approval.
What if your midlife rebellion doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else, either?
Maybe it just needs to make you feel more like yourself.
If the shape of your life no longer fits… maybe the misfit isn’t you.
Want to go deeper? Take five minutes to yourself today and ask:
What do I keep trying to explain that no longer needs explaining?
Where might I go, or what might I create, if I stopped needing it to make sense to anyone else?
Don’t worry about the rest of them. Let them keep climbing. You’ve got different ground to cover.
✌🏻 Miranda
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