A lifetime of timelines
As I try to create order out of the mess of ideas I have for my life, I keep coming back to one thing. One societal concept that either validates or denies my visions for the future.
And (although maybe it should be) it’s not happiness. Or fulfilment. Or wealth. Or love. Or career.
It’s age.
I’ve started to measure the validity of my dreams by the age I will be when I realise them.
I catch myself asking questions like:
Is 24 too old to work a ski season in Canada?
Is 23 too old do to a Summer Camp in America?
Will I ‘fall behind’ if I trade a few years of professional work experience for actual life experience…?
I weigh my every ambition against a timeline.
A timeline of social standards that whispers expectations of being in a solid relationship by your late twenties, engaged by 30, with kids on the way at 33. And, who could forget, a career!
I’m only 22, yet my dreams of travelling freely are tainted. Tainted by continuously calculating how long I have until I must ‘settle down’. How long would it take to rebuild my career and establish a relationship so I can travel now but still be married by the time I’m 30…?
(Lol at the romance of ‘establishing’ a relationship.)
So far, in my life, my actions have appealed to other people’s timelines. I know this because they tell me. They say I’m ‘doing well for my age’, or I’m ‘mature for my age’ or ‘responsible for my age’…
Whilst flattering, these comments simply reinforce my understanding that age is used to measure success.
Just think of how much extra traction Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai or even Billie Eilish received due to their youth. Would we have celebrated them equally if they were 35?
Of course not.
So, as I play with the idea of leaving my well-paying, ‘professional’ job to travel, one question comes to mind.
Who will say I’m ‘doing well for my age’ when I’m 25 and return from overseas with no savings, no relationship, and no job?
Who – who!? – will tell me I’m ‘doing well for my age’ then?
I’ve come full circle from the whole Identity crisis courtesy of Tinder thing and landed right back on placing too much value on what other people think.
But, in my own defence, I’ve been conditioned to think like this! And you have too.
Before you could even dribble your own name, you were pitted against the ‘industry standard’ of the infant/toddler world. Your first measure of success was whether you could crawl by six months, stand by 10 and start speaking by 18… I mean, heaven forbid if you weren’t toilet trained at three years and ready for school at four and are beginning to read by five.
Once you started school, the following twelve years are more or less dictated by your age. Sure there may be exceptions (there always are), but for the most part you were slotted into a system that assess you not on skills or smarts but age alone.
So, after 12 years of this kind of categorisation, it’s no wonder we emerge brainwashed. Brainwashed to make comparisons based on years around the sun, rather than experiences under it.
We are spat into a society of legal regulations, health expectations and social checkpoints that persist to value our age above all else.
When it’s all we know, it’s no wonder we accept it. We accept that there is an age you can legally drink, or drive, or retrieve your superannuation, or be sent to prison… Or an age your doctor will begin to recommend a pap smear, or bowl cancer screening, or skin cancer check… Or an age you’re expected to finish high school, choose a career, be in a relationship, buy a house…
Age and identity are inseparable.
Age and achievement are inseparable.
Age and acceptance are inseparable.
It’s helpful to recognise this early. Recognise it, and let it go.
Stop trying to appease the expectations of strangers. If you don’t, all your actions will be weighted. Your experiences tainted. Your achievements deflated.
I’ve realised that you can’t let age dictate your decisions. Because, if you let other people’s expectations determine your direction when you’re 22 – how will you feel when you’re 29 or 36 or 81?
How will you feel when you look back on your life and see a timeline and not a lifetime?
When you reflect on the opportunities you didn’t take, the places you didn’t go, the people you didn’t meet, the experiences you didn’t have…
I don’t want to look back on a life I didn’t live. A life led by expectations rather than motivations.
So, to answer my own question - No.
24 is not too old to work a ski season in Canada. Or, for that matter, to do anything else I can dream of.
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