Quote of the Day: Bette Midler on Daily Inspiration

We’re told that adulthood means mastery, that with enough discipline, you can bend your life (and your body) to your plans. But the longer you live, the more obvious it becomes that control is partly a bedtime story. That’s why Bette Midler lands a sly truth with the line: “After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.”

The quote isn’t a complaint so much as a reality check. Your twenties can feel like a clean contract between intention and outcome: skip sleep, eat anything, recover fast, repeat. Then your thirties arrive and the fine print appears. A late night lingers; a minor tweak becomes a weeklong negotiation; stress shows up in your shoulders before your thoughts can name it. The body starts voting, sometimes against you.

That shift can sting, but it can also sharpen you. When the body stops being an obedient vehicle and starts acting like a partner with boundaries, it forces a new kind of intelligence: listening. Not the anxious listening that scans for catastrophe, but the practical kind that notices patterns, what restores you, what drains you, what you can’t “power through” without paying interest. There’s humor in admitting this, and resilience in adapting instead of resisting.

Bette Midler has spent decades doing physically demanding work, commanding stages, carrying films, and sustaining a public life with relentless pace, while also building a philanthropic legacy through projects like the New York Restoration Project. She understands, professionally and personally, what it means to negotiate with the instrument that makes the performance possible.

December 7 is a date that often brings history into focus, a reminder that time doesn’t ask permission to move forward. Midler’s line is a small, bracing invitation to do the same: treat your body less like property and more like a conversation, one that, if you listen early, can keep you strong for the long run.