I wish more people talked about this. The attitude is that you do certain things and experience certain things at certain ages and that’s that. There aren’t enough people asking why that is though. For example, everyone says your eyesight gets worse as you get older. Is it possible that it does go back one day because you’ve been expecting it to for 20 years? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s a good thing to challenge what people just assume you will do if it does not align with what you hope to be doing. Thanks for creating a space to talk about this!
What does help... a lot... is that, as you mature, you give a lot fewer fucks about what other people think. Also, you've made sufficient cock-ups in life to realise that many of the things you once thought mattered, actually don't.
I remember when I was a teenager, getting good GCSEs was "the" thing that would determine whether you would live a life of greatness or mediocrity.
Then came the A-Levels which apparently had even more gravity. Then uni.
With hindsight, none of these things mattered much at all. When I did poorly at uni after doing well in school, I thought this would be it - I would be a social pariah. Well, society grumbled for a while, and forgot about the whole matter.
These days, I'm keenly aware that society really cares not a jot about me. Thus, I'd be crazy if I did things purely because I seek societal approval.
Harder to change as you get older? I don't know about that. I'm on the edge of retirement, at the end of my work career--if that's what you want to call it--telling myself I can reinvent myself and do what interests me. I know a lot of people who retired and expired having done nothing in their lives. I told myself a long time ago that when I retire, I want to do something different. I guess you could say life goes through changes that are sometimes imperceptible. All I can say about that is it had better change as you age, because life is supposed to be about growth. When I was a child, life was all about innocence. That could simply be because I was a dreamer, even then. But aging doesn't always mean you grow, does it? I mean, the world got pretty fucked up with Covid, and I say that because it put a lot of peoples' lives on hold. My plans for retirement? Sell the house, move to Europe, and see where life takes us. Life is about change, and growth, and you can either grab it by the horns and do what you want, or sit in front of the TV, and do nothing. Too many friends have died young, never having reached their potential. I don't know what life holds for my wife and I, but we don't want to wait for it to happen, when we can make it happen on our own terms.
I wish more people talked about this. The attitude is that you do certain things and experience certain things at certain ages and that’s that. There aren’t enough people asking why that is though. For example, everyone says your eyesight gets worse as you get older. Is it possible that it does go back one day because you’ve been expecting it to for 20 years? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s a good thing to challenge what people just assume you will do if it does not align with what you hope to be doing. Thanks for creating a space to talk about this!
What does help... a lot... is that, as you mature, you give a lot fewer fucks about what other people think. Also, you've made sufficient cock-ups in life to realise that many of the things you once thought mattered, actually don't.
I remember when I was a teenager, getting good GCSEs was "the" thing that would determine whether you would live a life of greatness or mediocrity.
Then came the A-Levels which apparently had even more gravity. Then uni.
With hindsight, none of these things mattered much at all. When I did poorly at uni after doing well in school, I thought this would be it - I would be a social pariah. Well, society grumbled for a while, and forgot about the whole matter.
These days, I'm keenly aware that society really cares not a jot about me. Thus, I'd be crazy if I did things purely because I seek societal approval.
Harder to change as you get older? I don't know about that. I'm on the edge of retirement, at the end of my work career--if that's what you want to call it--telling myself I can reinvent myself and do what interests me. I know a lot of people who retired and expired having done nothing in their lives. I told myself a long time ago that when I retire, I want to do something different. I guess you could say life goes through changes that are sometimes imperceptible. All I can say about that is it had better change as you age, because life is supposed to be about growth. When I was a child, life was all about innocence. That could simply be because I was a dreamer, even then. But aging doesn't always mean you grow, does it? I mean, the world got pretty fucked up with Covid, and I say that because it put a lot of peoples' lives on hold. My plans for retirement? Sell the house, move to Europe, and see where life takes us. Life is about change, and growth, and you can either grab it by the horns and do what you want, or sit in front of the TV, and do nothing. Too many friends have died young, never having reached their potential. I don't know what life holds for my wife and I, but we don't want to wait for it to happen, when we can make it happen on our own terms.