Assumptions, biases based on age are often misleading

“Age is just a number.”

“You’re only as old as you feel.”

As such phrases reveal, age permeates our culture. After race and gender, it is the first thing we assess when meeting someone new. Subsequently, our perception of her or his age, along with our stereotypes about it, shape how we interact with that person.

Most of us harbor subconscious biases toward members of specific age strata, such as child, teen, young adult, middle aged and old. Once included in one of these categories, we are subject to potentially erroneous presumptions.

For example, many look askance at an older person romantically involved with someone much younger, and vice versa. Their bias is that this is only acceptable in platonic circumstances, such as teacher and pupil.

Then there is the belief among some business leaders that older workers are less desirable, presuming they have reduced energy, ambition and intellectual acumen. Similar stereotypes can bedevil younger workers, as well, the prejudice being they are too inexperienced or immature to be solid employees.

Regrettably, ageism, as we call it, even shows up in my profession. Surveys indicate many mental health types, particularly younger ones, view their elderly clients as incapable of change or “set in their ways.”

This flies in the face of neuroscience research showing that our brains, and the behaviors they create, are malleable (neuroplasticity). What’s more, it ignores the potential power of extended life experience (often called “wisdom”) to support personal transformation.

Now, when it comes to a forming a sense of identity, age and one’s biases about it can be a powerful influence. Most of us say things to ourselves like “I’m getting old” or “I’m just a kid.”

This is more than idle self-talk but, rather, a way of imprinting a self-fulfilling prophecy on one’s consciousness — I’m old and feeble, or young and immature, or middle aged and in decline, etc. Without recognizing it, one’s age combined with one’s subconscious biases about it — powerfully influences both identity and personal efficacy.

For example, if I’m in my sixties (defined by society as old), but view that age group as capable of vigor and wisdom, while embodying those attributes in my own behavior, then I remain youthful. However, if I’m in my thirties and feel like I’m no longer young, while lacking the energy and engagement to counter that perception, then I am old.

One’s chronological age, then, is less relevant than one’s attitude, behaviors and lived capacities.

Of course, the body remains the final arbiter in such matters. Illness can make the young feel old, while good health can do the opposite for seniors.

Nonetheless, regardless of that date on your birth certificate, if blessed with reasonable health, some wisdom and solid life skills, along with a sense for the beauty and mystery of existence, then one’s age truly is just a number.