We are not born with the idea that old age is bad. In fact, in those early years you hear joyful appreciation for growing up like, “look how big you are!” Birthdays are clear celebrations. But soon enough, we’re conditioned that getting old is bad. We only hear about all the ways we will fall apart or others before us already have. We see scare advertising that we may come to need Depends, selectively forgetting that we started off without bladder control for like four years. As we outgrew grammar school and high school, we selectively minimized how we fumbled around to make friends and fit in. When you were having the ‘good old days’ you didn’t know that’s what they were.
Truth is, every stage of life has its good and bad aspects. Take, for example, right now. My estrogen ran off a while ago leaving me with a variety of ‘side effects’ unhelpful to my feminine wiles. In lieu of that (though not directly correlated) I have more self-confidence and wisdom. Everything is a trade-off. We believe looking out to the future is scary because we think only about the uncertainty of which thing will go next. We’re not necessarily looking out to the future thinking, “I’m going to be an amazing grandmother” or “look what I’ll be able to accomplish for my charity when I’m retired.” If you hear a senior citizen saying, “I’m still relevant, beautiful, smart, sexy and funny” you think they are cute in their obvious denial. See, we dismiss older people because of the way we glorify youth.
We are conditioned to ‘fight’ the aging process with exercise, diet and cosmetic procedures and products. This makes us never quite happy. Sheryl Sandberg encouraged women to “lean in” at work. I think we should ‘relax in’ to aging. There is, after all, no such thing as anti-aging. Unless, of course, you are a vampire.
Truth is, every stage of life has its good and bad aspects. Take, for example, right now. My estrogen ran off a while ago leaving me with a variety of ‘side effects’ unhelpful to my feminine wiles. In lieu of that (though not directly correlated) I have more self-confidence and wisdom. Everything is a trade-off. We believe looking out to the future is scary because we think only about the uncertainty of which thing will go next. We’re not necessarily looking out to the future thinking, “I’m going to be an amazing grandmother” or “look what I’ll be able to accomplish for my charity when I’m retired.” If you hear a senior citizen saying, “I’m still relevant, beautiful, smart, sexy and funny” you think they are cute in their obvious denial. See, we dismiss older people because of the way we glorify youth.
We are conditioned to ‘fight’ the aging process with exercise, diet and cosmetic procedures and products. This makes us never quite happy. Sheryl Sandberg encouraged women to “lean in” at work. I think we should ‘relax in’ to aging. There is, after all, no such thing as anti-aging. Unless, of course, you are a vampire.