Welcome to Project Second Half… an interview series exploring how people of all ages are thinking about—and choosing to live—the second half of life. PSF celebrates getting older, saying no to the bullshit that no longer serves us, and saying yes to the things we’ve put off—or that may once have felt unacceptable, unconventional, or simply not meant for us.
This week, I’d like to introduce you to Katharina Nguyen Faber, a German writer, creative strategist, and experienced expat currently living in Porto, Portugal.
Full name: Katharina Nguyen Faber
Age: 38
Location: Porto, Portugal
Relationship status: Married
Hobbies: Writing, traveling (I’ve been to 30+ countries), hiking & horseback riding, personal style & beauty, coffee, mulling over what I call big life questions.
Personal or side projects: Into Many Things Substack, building my Instagram and Cadence Podcast with my husband (currently on a break).
Kids: I have a 16-month-old daughter; her name is Sienna.
Who are you, and what should we know about you right off the bat?
I’m Katharina, a German writer, creative strategist, and someone who has lived in multiple countries, including the US, the UK, and Canada. I currently live in Porto with my Canadian husband and our daughter. I’m endlessly curious about how where we live, what we wear, what we buy, and the tiny choices we make every day shape our lives. I write about all of that on my Substack, Into Many Things, with a particular weakness for good design, cities, clothes, food, and beauty.
“I want to get curious again about what I genuinely enjoy, what I care about, what makes me lose track of time, and who I am when I’m not needed by anyone else.”
Is there a part of yourself that you’re hoping to rediscover in your second half of life?
Yes. I’m hoping to rediscover who I am outside the roles I play for other people: mother, wife, daughter, friend. I’ve spent so much of adulthood becoming very good at being all of those things that I’m not entirely sure who I am outside of that.
I think a lot about time in this context. There’s a philosophy behind the beauty brand Merit that really resonates with me: women tend to have less and less time for themselves as life fills up with work, relationships, children, and responsibilities, and we’re constantly encouraged to make ourselves more efficient rather than asking what we actually want that time for.
If you gave me an entirely free day today, with no childcare, work, errands, or obligations, I honestly don’t know what I would do with it. And that feels like something worth paying attention to. I want to get curious again about what I genuinely enjoy, what I care about, what makes me lose track of time, and who I am when I’m not needed by anyone else. But I’m not trying to find an earlier version of myself; it’s more about wanting to find out who I am now, when my time is actually my own.
What do you care less about now than you did 10 to 20 years ago?
What other people think of me. Climbing the career ladder. Making more and more money. I just want to live a good life.
What do you care more about now than you did 10 to 20 years ago?
Spending my time doing things that contribute to what a good life means to me.
When you imagine a good life at 50, 60, 70, or 80, what does it look and feel like?
I think a good life at 50, 60, 70, or 80 looks less like a particular achievement and more like having built a life I genuinely want to inhabit. I want to still be curious, still have things I’m excited about, still care about how my home looks and what I wear and where we’re going for lunch. I want close friendships that have lasted decades, a relationship that has kept evolving, and a family life that feels connected without consuming every other part of who I am.
I’d like to have the freedom to follow my interests, travel, spend long afternoons reading or writing, sit in cafés, and more. I want enough time that my days don’t feel like a series of things I have to get through. And I hope I’ve resisted the idea that getting older means becoming less interested in the world. If anything, I’d like to become more myself with age: more discerning, more curious, less concerned with what I’m supposed to want.
Mostly, I think I want a life that still feels expansive. Just full of things I find beautiful, people I love, and enough empty space to notice that I’m actually living it.
Have any major losses, disappointments, or life transitions changed how you think about your second half?
Absolutely. I lost my dad when I was 11 years old. He passed when he was 60 years old, and at the time my mom was only in her late 40s. Knowing that I am approaching her age when he passed, or approaching his age when he passed, makes me really want to make the most of life.
What are you no longer willing to postpone?
Building a work environment that is flexible and that I love. I am so done with working for someone else’s vision.
“I want work to be one meaningful part of my life, not its organizing principle.”
What role do work, achievement, or ambition play in your life today compared to earlier chapters?
Work and ambition used to be much more central to my sense of who I was. Earlier in my career, I was very motivated by achievement: doing well, progressing, being recognized as good at what I did, and proving to myself that I could build an interesting life and career. I still care deeply about doing good work, and I’m probably incapable of not being ambitious, but the role it plays has changed.
Having a child has made me much more aware of ambition's opportunity cost. Time is no longer an abstract resource, and I’m less willing to automatically give more of it to work just because I can. I want work to be one meaningful part of my life, not its organizing principle.
I also think I’m less interested in achievement for its own sake. I want to make things I’m proud of, stay intellectually engaged and keep growing, but I’m increasingly asking whether something is actually worth my time rather than simply whether I can succeed at it. That feels like a pretty significant shift from the person I was ten or fifteen years ago.
What have you learned about happiness that your younger self wouldn’t have understood?
That apart from health, happiness is the only thing that matters in life.
If the second half of life has a theme or guiding principle for you, what would it be?
The phrase I come back to most often is “we only live once.” I know it’s a cliché, but I’ve always taken it quite seriously. I even have a small “1” tattooed on my wrist as a reminder that this is the only life I’ll get.
It’s about paying attention to the life I’m actually living. Am I spending my time in a way that feels true to me? Am I present enough to notice it? Am I making room for the things and people that make being alive feel good?
It’s a thought that has influenced the big decisions, from moving countries to changing direction in my career, but I think it matters just as much in the small, ordinary parts of life. There’s no later version of life where I suddenly get to go back and pay attention to all the things I was too busy to notice the first time around.
What does growing older mean to you now?
I am still a bit scared of it, to be honest. But I also see the value in it. For example, the other day I said happy birthday to a friend who just turned 30 and said that the 30s have been my favorite period of my life. And I believe that looking back, I will probably also say that about my 40s once I start looking back.
“I’m still trying to figure out how to build a life that leaves enough room for all the different parts of me.”
What are you still trying to figure out?
Honestly, quite a lot. I’m still trying to figure out how to build a life that leaves enough room for all the different parts of me. How to be a good mother and wife without disappearing into those roles, how ambitious I actually want to be, and what I want my work to mean to me at this stage of my life.
I’m also trying to figure out what I genuinely want when nobody is asking anything of me. I’ve spent so much time being responsive to work, family, and other people’s needs that I’m not always very good at identifying my own wants before they become practical necessities. I’m still learning the difference between what I actually care about and what I’ve simply become very good at caring about.
And, perhaps most importantly, I’m trying to figure out how to make the most of my time without turning life itself into another optimization project. I want to be ambitious without letting achievement consume me, intentional without becoming rigid, and interested in the world without constantly feeling like I should be doing more with it.
What belief about life have you changed your mind about?
I used to believe that a good life was something you built through the right decisions: choose the right career, live in the right place, be with the right person, make enough money, and eventually you’d arrive at a life that felt right. I still think our choices matter, but I’ve become much more suspicious of the idea that a perfect life configuration is waiting to be found.
Moving countries several times probably changed that for me. I’ve experienced how differently the same person can feel in different places, and how quickly something you thought you needed can become completely unimportant once your circumstances change. I’ve also learned that a life can look objectively good and still not feel like yours.
These days I believe less in getting life right and more in paying attention. What feels good now? What am I making time for? What am I tolerating because I once decided it was what I wanted? I’m much more comfortable with the idea that a good life is something you keep adjusting as you become a different person.
“I think adulthood can make you very good at filtering your own impulses through everyone else’s needs, and I’d like to get a little better at hearing what I actually want.”
What are you trying to say “yes” to more these days?
I’m trying to say yes more often to things that don’t necessarily have a clear purpose. To curiosity, to interests that might not lead anywhere, to taking a detour because something looks interesting, to making time for something simply because I enjoy it.
I’m also trying to say yes to myself a little more. To the things I want before I’ve worked out whether they’re practical, productive, or useful to anyone else. I think adulthood can make you very good at filtering your own impulses through everyone else’s needs, and I’d like to get a little better at hearing what I actually want.
And I want to say yes to more of the small pleasures of being alive: a long lunch, a spontaneous train trip, getting dressed just because I like an outfit, wandering around a new neighborhood, inviting people over. Things that don’t necessarily add up to anything except a life that feels good while you’re living it.
What are you trying to say “no” to more these days?
Things that cross my boundaries. I don’t like to admit it, but I think I am a bit of a people pleaser because I like to avoid conflict.
What are you learning to let go of?
That everyone always has to think positively of me. It’s okay for people to be annoyed with me or even disappointed in me at times.
“Having a child has made me much more aware that some things are happening only once.”
What feels more urgent now than it did ten years ago?
Being in the moment. I feel it every day with my daughter. She is growing up faster than I can quite comprehend, and it has made time feel much more tangible. Having a child has made me much more aware that some things are happening only once. She will only be this age today. There will be a last time she reaches for my hand in quite this particular way, a last time she wants to be carried everywhere, a last version of the little person she is right now. I don’t want to spend those moments mentally rushing ahead to the next thing.
What would make you look back and think, “I used my time well”?
I think I’d look back and feel that I used my time well if I had been genuinely present for the life I built. If I had given enough of myself to the people I love, especially my daughter, so that I didn’t spend her childhood constantly distracted.
I’d want to have made things, too. Written, traveled, created, followed my curiosity, changed my mind, moved somewhere new because it felt right. I’d want to have spent time on things that interested me simply because they interested me, rather than only on things that were useful or productive.
What do you hope people remember about you when you’re gone?
That they can do hard things and just go for what they want because they saw that that’s how I lived my life.
Big thanks to Katharina for taking the time to answer my questions, and as always, thanks for reading! Leave a comment or question for her below. 💬
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Project Second Half explores how people of all ages are thinking about the second half of their lives. If you’d like to participate in the series, fill out this form. The more the merrier! You can also answer it anonymously if you prefer.