Getting older and wiser is absolutely bloody awesome.
Personally, I reject the ageist beliefs that a lot of people go along with in our society.
Instead, I choose leadership.
By this I mean that I recognise that I am in a leadership position relative to people younger than myself. And I have a responsibility to exercise that leadership.
I have a responsibility to do this because all human beings are getting older every minute of every day.
This means that people younger than myself will look to me to see how I handle my life and my journey as they get older and eventually get to my age too.
And I want them to look at my life and my journey and to feel hopeful and positive about what lies ahead.
Human beings are living creatures that were designed to be born, to live, to get older and to then eventually die, just like all other living creatures. According to an online article I once read, we start losing muscle bulk in our 30’s, but we are growing personally, mentally and spiritually over our entire lives.
This growth is just the most beautiful thing, in so many ways.
But first, I want to state one thing. While I refuse to go along with commonly held ageist beliefs, I am highly aware that life is very short and that I might not be able to do certain things at the furthest end of my life. This awareness makes me super conscious that I need to make the most of my life, to keep growing, and to work to achieve the goals that are most important to me as a human being. I love this awareness because it focuses me on what’s valuable, positive and energising in my life, and I wish I’d had this awareness as a much younger adult.
If you’re reading this and you are under 30, know this. You will get to 30. Then, in almost record time, you’ll find yourself 40. Time will then pick up speed exponentially and you’ll find yourself 50 all of a sudden. Don’t take this personally, it happens to everyone. It’s the reason everyone talks about life flying by. Please, just make the most of every year that you get, and keep growing to ensure that you get the joy out of life, because no one is going to give you more years later on if you don’t use them now.
Anyway, with the above said, the reasons that I love being older are:
1. You become more you
While your body and your face may acquire wrinkles, varicose veins and stretch marks, your brain, your heart and your soul grow bigger and better over time, and you become more you. I’ve definitely acquired all of the above battle scars, and I love them. Because as my brain, my heart and my soul all continue to grow and expand with each passing day, I also grow more and more me each passing day too. Not only do I love having a much stronger definition of myself that I can write down in a notepad these days, I also love the fact that I actively make the effort to listen to my soul these days. I ask my inner guidance system or intuition for help directly. Essentially, this is because completely ignoring my intuition when it was practically screaming at me in the past resulted in some roundly horrendous outcomes for me.
I’ve also benefitted from the fact that at this point in my life I’ve had to make some choices that caused a bit of temporary discomfort at the time, but that had to be made when something was clearly wrong in my life and my soul refused to allow me to keep ignoring this fact. I made these choices because I was blessed with the most amazing parents who gave me a strong moral compass and who loved me as the person I am. But Jesus, was finally standing up for something worth it! Hell yes it was. I earnt the most beautiful freedom and the most beautiful changes in my life by refusing to go along with convenience and awfulness, and instead standing up and saying that I was going to live my life according to my own values.
I seriously love being more me these days. Which makes sense, because I’m the one person that I’ll have to spend my entire life with.
As Anna Kournikova says:
2. You become so much happier
When I was in my late teens and early twenties my moods were more severe, and I remember noticing that as I got into my mid twenties and to the age of 30, they became less so with each passing year.
Over time I also found out that arguing or yelling when I was upset about something made me feel worse, not better, and it made the other person (and the pets living in the household) feel like shit too. It was a lose-lose situation if there ever was one. I finally realised that how I reacted to any situation was a choice, and that I actually often didn’t need to get upset in the first place. I was not responsible for anyone else’s behaviour, I was only responsible only my own. I could also assert myself calmly when I needed to. I achieved this realisation after I had literally worn myself out with stress and anger, having finally got tired of feeling exhausted and older than my years. Stress really does rob all of us of our energy and life force.
These days, I also feel generally happier because I know myself better, I’ve got a beautiful friend and family network and I’m happier with each part of my life. I also live in a beautiful community with nature around me, I’ve benefitted from practising gratitude at day’s end and I can play loud music which makes my vehicle a mobile disco, which I absolutely love.
As the legendary Jane Fonda says:
3. You become much more powerful
In my case, my personal power differential is extremely noticeable because I was a super late developer in every way.
As a result, I’m seriously worth seven times what I was at the age of 20.
I was definitely a bit of a lost child in the store back then.
These days my problem solving abilities are far greater, I have a far greater arsenal of skills, and I have a vastly greater amount of knowledge.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not special. My increased capacity is just a natural consequence of the number of years of adulthood that I’ve had since the age of 20, and it’s the same for all of us.
But God damn, do I love this additional power!
I so love the fact that I know that problems will happen because they’ve happened before, and I’ll figure out a way to solve them just as I’ve done before. I know that I won’t get fixated on a single solution to solve them either, I’ll look for other solutions quickly and I’ll be lateral to find one. I love the fact that my brain is bigger these days.
And overall, I love being wiser and stronger than I used to be, and having more to offer the world.
4. You become far more alive because you no longer think that life is going to go on forever
* For anyone who’s seen some of my other blog posts, you wil have seen the above photo before. It’s just such an awesome photo that so successfully captures human happiness that I just have to use it again here!
I love being older because as a very simple and direct result of this fact, I’ve well and truly been shaken out of the stupor that I was in for way too many years of adulthood.
I’m one of those people that needed the adrenaline kick of having significantly less years in my life to force me to get up off my lardy arse and do something.
The fact that my age was increasing every year finally gave me the rocket up my backside that I needed, and I started making decisions and taking action. It’s a bit like the way some people like to cram for their exams at the last minute. I seem to like the pressure of having only a certain amount of life left to give me energy and motivation.
As a result of some of the actions I’ve taken, my overall energy (or vibration, whatever you want to call it) is more positive and I just feel better all round.
In summary, exercising the leadership position all of us have on account of whatever age we are right now is so important. When I was younger, I had a good friend who I met when she was about 90, and she was 106 when she died. Happily, she spent all but the last month of her life in her own home. She was extremely positive, and she’d often say how there was always someone worse off than her. She had a wicked sense of humour, was grateful for everything in her life, and she was an amazing friend and an inspirational role model for me.
I’m also lucky because at this point because I’ve witnessed the way my beautiful parents’ souls have grown over time. They’re both wiser, bigger and more amazing souls now who are softer and more loving. They also don’t worry or stress about anything much because they know that most things don’t actually matter. As an example, when I was growing up on a sheep station, all of our kelpie sheep dogs had to be tied up on their chain at the end of every day, and they lived outside the house yard. There was an absolutely iron clad rule that sheep dogs were never allowed inside the house. Recently however, a friend of ours dropped his kelpie at my parent’s house for a few hours and my Dad was not only quite happy with the dog being inside the house, he was even quite delighted with the fact that she had hopped up on the bed next to him to have a camp after lunch.
I’ve also personally worked for and with older people, and they are always kinder, wiser, bigger, stronger and more forgiving souls. This personal strength of course also helps them deal with some of the health challenges that can arise in this part of all of our lives. It’s so impressive to see how they literally shake off whatever problems arise like water off a duck’s back.
In conclusion, know that you are a powerful and beautiful human being, no matter what age you are. I’ve tragically seen beautiful women in their late 40’s (who in many cases have only just reached the mid point of their life) decide that they’re now invisible to men and to the world in general, because, “that’s how the world sees women.” What the hell is this? There’s plenty of hot men out there who are also in their late 40’s (and older) who want a woman who is exactly their age. For God’s sake, we’re all as hot as we think we are. Full stop. No exceptions. Why would you sabotage your joy and your happiness with such ridiculous beliefs? Making yourself a victim of your own self-created falsities only makes you feel miserable and robs you of all your personal power.
Instead, feel happier, more powerful and better overall for the strength you’ve accumulated as you’ve progressed. Personally, I feel that I have a duty to honour my leadership position relative to anyone younger who is coming along behind me. Why would I fail to show leadership when I know that younger people really need this from those who are further along on the journey, because they will be my age at some point too?
© Annemaree Jensen