Over the past several years, I’ve had pretty light-hearted conversations with my peers about growing older. For instance, just yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months who is currently 26. She expressed a fear about not having her life together and gave off a few reasons for these tiny concerns she was having. Keep in mind that this friend is beautiful, intelligent, has a great career, an exciting dating life, travels the world and is currently relocating to another country in about a month. Regardless of all this, the conversation seemed to focus on the fact that some men her age don’t want to date women her age due to an idea that women her age were constantly thinking about marriage or children. As a result, she’s concerned that she’s getting older and wasting opportunities to meet a potential match at some point.
I cannot lie and say these negative thoughts haven’t gripped me from time to time. Truthfully I’ve had these feelings since right after graduating high school. Some of these reasons might resonate with you. Please note that X age is just an example age. You can fill in the number that works for you whether that’s 19 or 89.
- I’m X age and I don’t know what I want to major in at college. I’m worried that I’m getting older and wasting opportunities to start working towards a career.
- I’m X age and haven’t had a promotion yet. I feel like I’m getting older and my career is stagnant. I don’t want to regret not having more work experience but I’m worried that I’m too old to apply for a different job.
- I’m X age and I’ve just realized that I don’t want to be a doctor. I’ve invested 15 years of education into this field. I’ve invested so much of myself into this field and I hate it. I followed this path because this is what my parents wanted for me, but I really don’t want to be a doctor. I’m too old now to make a career change. I feel stuck.
- I’m X age and I’m single. All my friends are getting married and I’m not even in a long term relationship. I’m worried that I’m too old to be considered attractive and to find love. I’m worried that I’ll have to settle for someone that I don’t love to get married or accept that I’ll be single for the rest of my life.
What I find interesting about the majority of my conversations revolving around getting older, is that the time line is based largely on the person. For instance, I have many friends who love being single and have no interest in marriage at the moment. These women are of all different ages and believe they have plenty of time to meet the right person. But then I have some female friends who are as young as 22 who dread the idea of being single after a certain age. They must be married by 25 or some other age for their lives to be on track or to mean something. I’ve seen this with so many of my peers about different things. At 30 some people feel like they’ve lost the opportunity to travel the world, while others feel like that is the ideal age to quit your job and travel the world. Other people are constantly learning new skills and taking advantage of educational opportunities. Other people feel like the prime opportunity for learning passes after graduating with a degree at a certain age.
Try to not place a time line on yourself. Feeling like you are too old largely has to do with the expectations you put on yourself. If you believe that you have to be in your life career by the age of 23, you’ll feel disappointed and like you are falling behind if that objective isn’t met. If you feel your book needs to be published within a year after the book is final and sent off to publishers, you’ll start feeling like all your effort meant nothing when the book isn’t picked up for publication. I understand that trying to not have a time line can be tough.
Having a time line is a good starting point. For instance, if you know that you want children by a certain age, you can start making plans to take dating more seriously. You can choose to invest your energy into serious partners, spend less time with toxic people and start building a foundation for financial stability and self-development. However, if you don’t have children by a certain age it doesn’t mean you are falling behind, a failure or will never become a parent. Life will not always unfold the way that we want it to. There will be moments where something isn’t the way you imagined it would be in your life. As long as you continue on the journey to getting to where you want to be, you’ll understand that things happen on their own time. As long as you are doing the best that you can, you’ll realize that you aren’t wasting years of your life but are happily enjoying your life.
1. Success can and does happen at any age. Focusing on the very few people in this world who are millionaires in their 20s isn’t a realistic way of viewing the likelihood that you will become wealthy. Looking at your social media account and counting the people who have gotten engaged or married this week, isn’t reflective of the success of their personal relationships or a measure of how likely you will meet that special someone. When you do research and look at statistics, you may realize that many people share your struggles. In other words, you are not the outlier, but another person trying to deal with the daily struggles of life. The good news is that your whole life is ahead of you to achieve your goals and dreams. This doesn’t mean that you should become a passive participant in your life, but it does mean that you can continue trying and understanding that you have time to achieve what you want. My mother started dancing in her 50s for instance. She loves it and has mentioned a couple of times how she wishes she could have started when she was younger and able to do more things. However, dancing is now her passion. She participates in competitions, masters all types of dancing, meets new people and is having the best time of her life.
2. Sometimes you have a better product when you do things later. I’ve always wanted to write a Fantasy novel. I haven’t yet and although I have some ideas and have a few drafts, I still have much to learn about writing before taking it seriously. Some people are very skilled writers and can craft an amazing novel in their early 20s. I’m not saying that if I didn’t put the time in to learn to properly write a novel, that I couldn’t now. I just realize that there’s still so much for me to learn before committing to such a large scale project. The same goes for relationships and marriage. In my teens, I had pictured myself being engaged at 25. However, at 25 I was in no position to be married or even engaged. I had trust issues, anger and other emotional problems that I needed to be actively working on before committing myself fully to another person. Even now I know that I’m not ready for marriage. The desire for marriage still exists but I need to work on myself first before committing to marriage. Many things in life are better with time and patience. Although it would be great to be ready for everything by a certain age, all of us are constantly growing and learning. You may have a much stronger and effective product when you wait. In the meantime, keep learning, developing your skills and putting yourself in a position to achieve your goals.
3. Review credible research because you may realize that your life is on track. It can be easy to listen to what our friends tell us during a night out or some offhand comment written on a forum. However, do your research. A few months ago, myself and another friend looked up the average age people got married in certain countries. The average age was much higher than we both thought. People are having children much later and it is good to know why. For instance, what is the actual chance you can have children at a certain age? Don’t ask your brother, but look it up from legitimate sources instead. You might also discover that not owning your own property means that you are saving far more money than peers who are struggling to pay off their loans.
4. Keep living and moving forward. Feeling old largely has to do with feeling stuck or trapped. You spend more time thinking about the past, where you think you should be and ultimately taking less time from actually doing something about it. Instead of spending so much time regretting the fact that you didn’t go to culinary school when you were younger, enroll in a class now and get started. Taking steps will help you feel like you are doing something. You’ll start feeling like your life is moving in the right direction when you take the steps to move forward.
5. Accept that you can’t change the past. All of us have made mistakes or wish we could have started something earlier. For instance, I love improv comedy now, and at times, I do wish I had gotten into the hobby earlier. However, that’s not what happened with my life and who knows where my life would be if I had taken comedy courses earlier. Or sometimes I wish I hadn’t stayed in toxic relationships for so long, but again, my life has changed positively from those relationships. I’ve learned valuable lessons and can truly appreciate a wonderful partner as a result. Accept your past and accept the positives and negatives from those past choices. You will feel better when you can view your past objectively and see all the good things that have resulted.
6. It’s pretty normal to not feel like the age you are. Due to differing maturity levels, life experiences, physical health choices and other opportunities, many of us may not feel like the age we currently are. For instance, I feel much younger when I’m being very physically active and taking good care of my health. However, 5 years ago I felt older than my age likely because I felt more mature than my peers and was overly focused on work rather than personal interests and my passions.
The more you focus on false time lines and the choices you should have made in the past, the less focus you place on the present. You’ll continue to not move your life forward by feeding yourself negative feedback about your own life. Aging doesn’t have to make you afraid. You don’t have to be upset about mistakes you think you have made or looking for gaps in your life. Truthfully, you have the rest of your life in front of you, and the choices you make now are what truly matters. How old do you think you are now? What are things you are doing now to live the life you want?