I have a real issue with age.
Age is just a number that defines the number of years you have spent on this earth.
I do not like talking about my age and I really really hate it when other people bring it up or share without my permission. (especially when they know how much I hate it). If I chose to share it then that is up to me and no one else.
I have friends in all different age brackets, but I never think about their age. Why? Because it doesn’t matter. It is irrelevant to me. I like my friends for the people they are, not because of the number of years they have been alive.
Why is the world so obsessed with age? The common concept in our society is that it is always good to look young. Youth is celebrated and revered, put up on a pedestal really. And it often feels like society looks down on older women and sometimes aging in women is perceived as negative but aging in man men is perceived as positive. Feeling older and looking older are two different things. You can be old and look young or be young and feel old.
If you look back in history there are many cases of people not getting real success until they were past 40 years old.
- Bethany Frankel was in her 40s when she launched a low-calorie margarita company that became her Skinnygirl empire
- Alan Rickman got his big break when he was 42 and playedHans Gruber in Die Hard.
- Vera Wang didn’t open her now-iconic bridal boutique until she was 40
- Charles Darwin was 50 years old before he published On the Origin of the Species in 1859, the book that espoused the theory for which he best known today.
- Julia Child launches published her first cookbook when she was 39; she made her television debut in The French Chef at age 51.
- Judy Dench was in her 60’s when her film career took off
- Harland Sanders didn’t create KFC until he was in his later 60’s after being fired from many jobs and was broke
Age to me has no boundaries. I am more confident today than I was in my twenties and probably even my thirties. With age, comes knowledge, wisdom, and confidence.
Now I love celebrating my birthday and surviving another year in this crazy world we live in. But I don’t celebrate age. I celebrate life!
I have decided to be ageless so please don’t ask me for my number as it is not relevant to who I am as a person. (and if you can choose to be anything other than male and female on a form, why should I be forced to choose an age bracket?)
So, as another birthday looms, I will not be defined by a number. I will be defined by the actions I take and the words I speak. They are much more important than numbers.
