99Percent

This month I turned 40, a milestone which I definitely think puts me out of club of the "young".

Lately I have been thinking about this aging and it occurred to me that there is in fact no reason to envy the young. To the contrary, its the younger ones who should envy the old.

Suppose that at this moment the Earth is destroyed and everyone dies. Who in the end, had more years of life? Of course the ones who were older. Twenty year old ones has lived less than 40 year old ones. In fact, the younger generation still has risks and possible deaths, accidents, pains and hardships that the old already endured or avoided. I see a twenty year old and I do not envy his youth, to the contrary, I am glad that I have already lived 20 years more than him. He may or may not live the additional 20 years, but I have them already under my belt!

This also answers my incognita as to why young people seem to yearn for the times of decades past. I was perplexed as to why my daughter would like to live the fashions and music of the 70's and 60's when for me those decades were horrible compared to the times we live now. The realization of course is that she hasn't really lived those decades, she merely wishes she had! She wishes to be older! However if she had lived them she would have experienced the frightening era of the cold war, paranoia, racism, apartheid, censorship, and no internet (gasp!), among many other things.

So, I have learned to instead celebrate each new year and day of my life as it passes, instead of envying the vigor, innocence and possible early death and suffering of those younger than me. Now I just need to catch up to those who have lived longer than me and intend to keep myself in as good shape as possible. Yep, I envy the old people, specially those who have good health and are happy with themselves.

Vandrare

well, i am still fairly young by such comparison (only 22), but i find the reason i envy people older than me not because they've lived longer, but because they have so much greater a wealth of experiences to draw on to understand everything by. i guess i'm looking forward to the wisdom that comes with ages, not necessarily just being alive for longer.
and happy birthday 99percent....

SimplyAtheistic

Hey, you made it over the hill, congratulations. I guess it depends on how you lived your life if you envy the young. If you had a wonderful life there is no reason you should envy the young because you were in that position and had a great time. But if it wasn't so great I bet you wish you could be young again and change that. Also, you might envy the young because they have more energy, lead more exciting lives, have less health problems, etc... Then again you may not. I am glad I am young, but I will be just as glad when I am old.
Jake

Aquila ka Hecate

The old saying "Youth is wasted on the young" sounds suspiciously like sour grapes coming from oldies like myself (I'm 43), and many younger peoplpe may cynically and justifiably wonder why we do protest so much that older is better.

I'm not sure I 'm able to explain-but better it is.

I have the financial stability and earning-power I never had in my twenties, my family-raising is mostly behind me, and I'm free to be the person I am without so many social restraints.

I mean really the person I am- not a rebel for the sake of it, but doing each thing because this is what I want to do.No one else's opinion matters in the least.

Because when a woman reaches a certain age, I have discovered that what she may 'get away with' is vastly more than in her youth.

I guess, since I'm not in the citizen-producing-line any more, society couldn't care less what it is that I do, providing I'm not a mass murderer or a hijacker.

I can turn down social invitations with no problems, pitch up to work at 6:00 am and leave at 4:00pm.
Wear jeans and a bike jacket without a motorbike in sight.
Have little tantrums at my former-fellow wiccans when they are acting like fools.And if anyone bats an eyelid, I don't see it.

Perhaps it's just that-I no longer care so deeply about what anyone else thinks of me.So my priorities are more natural, and much better for me.

Anyway, welcome to the 40's, 99Percent-I know you'll like it here!
Terri

cobrashock

I'm 59 and I guess the only thing I would do over is to be "better"
at the things I chose to do back then, with the Apriori knowledge of my presant age of course! Come to think of it, that might have got me in even more trouble than I scraped out of back then. I know it's not the only thing that's important, but your post does show the importance of financial stability. It's just a fact of life unfortunately and a lesson not learned till middle age hits you right between the eyes.
Happy 40th, I'm looking for my 60th in november.
cobrashock

victorialis

Old or young, there's always something a person isn't fitted out to do as well as they'd like, due to insufficient energy, perspective, endurance, preparation, resources, whatever. None of those things are exclusive functions of youth or of age.

What changes across the lifespan is the specific list of things we don't do well. Everybody always has such a list, knowing it or not, from birth onwards; so the balance of practical assets and liabilities is actually more or less constant. It's only if we think certain abilities are "better" than others that the balance looks lost. ("better!" *snort*)

But 99, I'm glad you're not getting trapped in the nonsense of ageism. It's bogus.

Some abilities and beliefs are well-lost! ... not least because then others come in their place.

How boring it would be if that didn't happen.

Psychic

I have read what you’ve posted guys, and I would like to share how I view life at different ages.
First I would like to point out that I am 23 years old.
Well, to start with, I would first try to simply establish What is the goal in this life? A simple straight forward answer is: to have a goal in this life is the goal of this life
To some it’s success, status…etc. etc
In the first years of one’s life, the great advantage in possession (IMO) is the remarkable Flexibility in nearly every aspect.
All the choice are laid their for a young man, capable of being nearly anything, equipped with the energy and the time to excel in any field. A young man’s personality is also at it’s most flexibility. It’s the time when someone can change his character .
So to cut it short a young person has all those paths open, so our concern as youth is simply to “make the right choices” to decide what you are best suited to do. To decide what is the best way for you to live, your ethics, your friends. All these decisions in the end will shape the kind of person we’ll end up being.
In contrast to those who passed this stage, who had everything figured out. They chose certain paths in life, and they HAVE to carry on till the end of the road. There’s not enough time left to begin the march on new paths.

So if you as a young made the “right” choices for yourself, you should be living happily now, doing what you’ve always wanted to do. Living the kind of life you always been after.

so how i see it, old age is the ultimate goal of my life. it's the period of greatest intellectual and mental capablities, this period of youth is only a period of preparation and acquisition of skills.

LeetJeebus

My two cents...

I find the reason I envy those older than me is that they've already gone through the crap that I'm going through and proven resilient enough to survive it... I still get to deal with my doubts and fears.

Luiseach

My mother's 'philosophy' about growing older is

'It sure beats the alternative.'

starling

Aging... I dunno, seems like there must be some sort of psychochemical reaction that goes on in our heads, seems like everyone chooses to consider "over the hill" as a good thing. I too would love to have a few more decades under my belt, but for a slightly different reason.

If you were to die now, and it was really the end of your life, I can't see any reason to think you would be able to care one way or another about whether you spent more time or not. It's just another toy after all. Not that it's necessarily true, but if we don't continue to live beyond death, it really doesn't matter when you die, except perhaps to the people you leave behind.

I don't know about the 60's or the 70's, but I wouldn't mind seeing the next 60's and 70's. Anyone who really wants something in the past to come again should be able to make it happen, with enough patience, time and effort. Emphasis on time, which we don't have.

They say youth is wasted on the young and I agree! I have no idea what to do with all this youth, and I never have. It's always a mad rush to and fro. A momentary flicker, not even a century and we're supposed to be done. To tell the truth, I could have used a few extra years here and there, earlier in my life.

Some time to stop and reflect, and not to have to skip out on the good things: sitting in the flowers staring at the sky, trying my hand at just about everything, learning to really camp instead of just winging it, finding some of those elusive true friends out there that can take years to find. When it comes to life, I can't say that we don't miss out. You're only in high school once. You only get one shot at Kindergarden. There's no catching up on the swim team if you weren't there at the right year. There's no catching up on the violin if you weren't given lessons starting at 3.

Frankly, I think aging sucks. It's too fast! By the time I'm ready to do something useful with my time, it's already wasted. Just can't see myself in 20, 30 years going, "Ah hah hah, how foolish I was back then to think I wouldn't be satisfied with what I did back then!" Instead a vague sense of, "Ok now I'm ready for 1st grade," would likely occur. Guess I must not have had that good of a childhood as everyone who's so satisfied with theirs.