Continuing yesterday’s rant –
A clarity note: I do love some people my own age. Love, adore, can’t get enough of some of my friends from high school. Don’t let my quest to get across the amazing-ness of some of the people who are older than me make you think for a second that it takes away any of the spectacular-ness of my friends my age.
Back to my rant.
Do you ever think about young we all are? Really. I don’t care if you’re fifty, eighty, twenty, whatever – in the scheme of the universe, and the next twenty years of our lives – we’re so young! We have unlimited possibilities.
I don’t believe in ever saying “I’m too old.” I hear people say it. “I’m too old to change careers.” “I’m too old to start running.” “I’m too old to really make anything of my life.” I think we all get trapped in that negative headspace sometimes. There is a lot of pressure from the outside world to be young, and to accomplish amazing things before you even hit thirty. Which is crazy!
I really do my best to remind myself and others, anytime I hear “I’m too old” slip out of someone’s mouth, that we’re not too old. Truly. How could we possibly be too old? If anything is possible (and it is), and we’re still alive (which we are), we can do anything.
You can find stories of people every age doing whatever it is you want to do. If you start typing in “80 year old” on Google, some of the suggestions that fill in are skydiver, gymnast, bodybuilder, model, and more.
(Even if, somehow, you can’t find a story of someone your age doing what you want to do, how cool does that make you for being the first one?)
Making excuses for why we can’t do things is counterproductive and wastes time. We’re really only old if we feel like we’re old. I know that’s sort of a cliché thing to say, but I believe it 100%. I won’t give my high school theater teacher’s age – suffice it to say she’d been teaching for a couple of decades. She had more energy than we had! She is full of more life than ten (a hundred, maybe?) average people put together. She’s only one example of the amazing people I know who are older than me, and at least 8 times as cool as me.
Getting older actually makes you more awesome in a lot of ways. Many people gain more knowledge about themselves, others, and the world around them. Example: Stephen, my amazing college professor. He and his wife are both brilliant and wildly interesting. I’d never call them “old.” (Partially because they’re not old.) They may not be 27, but they’re young and hip as far as I’m concerned. They have this light and energy that is infectious, that we mere mortals can only dream of having.
In many ways, I’m thankful to be as old as I am.
I feel as though I am right on the cutoff between almost two different worlds. I was oblivious to Facebook in high school. It existed, but thankfully not enough of us cared about it to make it popular at my school.
(I was super oblivious to technology in general back then. People reminisce about their high school blogs, MySpace pages, and other online stuff. Where was I during all of this?
I guess in a theater, taking notes on paper. With pencils. Yep. I was rocking it straight up 1976 style. (Says in old lady voice: Back in my day we didn’t have iPads you whippersnappers, you.) I guess I’m saying I’m pretty sure I was (still am) a total nerd who’s typically one of the last people to jump on technological bandwagons. I could fill up lots of space with my take on the pros and cons of technology, but let me try to whip back around to what I was kind of saying.)
I cannot even imagine what it would have been like to have Facebook in high school. High school had more than enough drama as is! Putting it all online? I don’t know how high schoolers deal with it. They are stronger than I am. I think that we, as adults, are not always equipped to handle Facebook. It’s a very skewed look at the world and ourselves.
Rant over? Nope. More on Thursday.