Our ages should not be timelines established by others
At what age do we start — or stop — being able to achieve tasks or contemplate thoughts? When I was 15 years old a law dictated that I was “too young to drive”, regardless of the fact that I could easily maneuver my father’s truck and tractor. When I was 65 years old, the government had decided that it was the time for me to retire, supposedly because I was then probably too old to perform the requirements of my job. (I had the deciding hand in that decision because, by my choice, I had already retired. Therein lies the rub, when we enable others to decide our actions we are reneging on our desires and willingness to perform tasks; we are symbolically throwing in the towel.
It is unrealistic and equally unproductive to lump all of us into “predetermined categories” because of the number of birthdays we have accumulated. It irks me to be told I should not be doing an activity because of my age. I am not naive to the reality that my number of years might have affected my performances at activities; however, I am very cautious to not enable the bias of others to restrict me from engaging in desired endeavours.
Whenever I have a routine blood test, my results are placed within a category with other males who share my number of years implying that all of us are similar. Those years of our living are our only resemblances. To establish our true ages, we should ask relevant questions: Are we, or have we ever been, consumers of tobacco or cannabis? What about our alcohol consumption histories?
How about our stress levels or crisis management techniques? What about our upbringings from parental care, environmental effects, health watchfulness and nutritional qualities? (You can add your own variables to my partial list of factors that will be more applicable to your years and gender.)
Ageism is so prevalent and persuasive within our society that sadly most of us simply accept it as being inevitable. What twigged today’s topic was the frequent reference to the ages of the two contenders for the position of the president of the United States of America. One of those hopefuls will be 78 years old and the other 81 years at that election’s conclusion. Many pundits frequently reference those presidential candidates’ ages, especially the older of the two. It is as if there is a shut-off switch reached via accumulated birthdays that causes an individual to be unsuitable.
The human body and mind are marvelous creations; neither is designed to sit or to vegetate or to discontinue mental activities. With current lifestyles and living realities causing too many of us to be less active, we must strive to push back to combat the negative consequences of being sedentary. Such a strategy will hopefully counter the erroneous opinions of others.
The bottom line to today’s opinion is that I firmly believe no two people within the world’s approximately eight billion humans are identical. My earlier list of factors impacting your true age, complemented by your own contributors, causes each of us to be different. Yes, I was born in a certain year on a specific day and at a precise time, but that is where my similarity with all others sharing my birthday stops. Many variables, from the health of my ancestors, their lifestyles, their genetic traits passed onto me via my mother and father and then re-enforced by my life circumstances also impact my true age and not the timeline established by others.
Ray Bates, a resident of Guysborough (Sedabooktook: harbour running far back), has been contributing his opinions to newspapers since 1998. raybates@ eastlink.ca