The Irrelevant Number

Baby boomers in the US are expected to spend over US$12 billion in the next 18 months in anti-aging products. According to Transparency Market Research the global anti aging market is expected to to reach US$191.7 billion by the end of 2019. We seem to live in an age that tends to glorify youth - a 10 to 12 year period in life, from the early twenties to mid thirties – the golden age.

I decided to write about this after reading Gerard Fournier’s “Sex, Lies and Truth – A Very Short History: Creating A Better World Starts With Seeing It For What It Really Is: Uncut And Censor Free.” A very interesting book that delves into eclectic topics. One of the topics was aging and I think it is both relevant and relative. Relevant because aging is inevitable but how you age is not and relative because a 20 year old thinks a 40 year old is old whereas a 60 year old thinks a 40 year old is young.

As kids, we wish we were older and when we are older we wish we were younger. Since I am past the golden age, when I think back, I realize that compared to my life now, the golden age doesn’t seem as great as it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy my twenties and early thirties - the college experience, my first job, meeting my wife, having kids are definitely high-points in my life. But, I think the best is yet to come…

There are three ways of looking at age:

• Chronological age
• Psychological age
• Biological age

Chronological age is based on a calendar and the date of birth – not much we can do about.

Psychological age is how old we feel or how young at heart we are. Deepak Chopra says that attitude determines a person’s psychological age. He goes on to say that “If you think that your aging is synonymous with decay and decrepitude, than that’s what’ll happen. On the other hand, if you think aging is glamorous, then you’ll have a different expression of aging.” Unfortunately, our cultural attitude is that it is bad to get old. So, we idolize the ‘concept’ of youth; and wrongfully believe that it is the only stage that counts.

Biological age is based on biological markers of aging – BP, bone density, fat content, cholesterol, muscle mass, sex hormones, sugar tolerance, vision, hearing, etc. It has been scientifically proven that all of these biological markers are all reversible. Tufts University conducted a study with people between 84 and 96 and introduced them to different physical conditioning programs and were able to reverse all the bio-markers of aging. It is also proven that consistent meditation for over five years has shown that the mediator’s biological age is about 12 years younger than the chronological age of his peers. [Wrote about the benefits of meditation in Feb'15]

In ancient times, aging was seen as an achievement of something important. Specially when you consider that the height of the Roman Empire, life expectancy was a mere 28 years. For parts of the Dark Ages, it was closer to the low twenties. Even 100 years ago, with all the advances of the Industrial Revolution, the average European or North American could look forward to no more than 48 to 50 years.

Aging is the beginning of our personal age of wisdom. What do we have to show for it? A lot actually. Its experience! In fact it is the only currency that can purchase wisdom. This is what Neale Donald Walsh has to say about experience - “words may help you understand something, but experience allows you to know. Never, ever trade your own experience for someone else's words about anything that is really important.”

Experience is wasted on someone that is not willing to learn and grow. As the old saying goes – people don’t grow old, when they stop growing, they become old. So, you can have an 80 year old with the mindset of a 20 year old and vice-versa. With that being said, when society expects us to act our age, do we act per our chronological age, psychological age or biological age?

Jane Goodall, who studied chimpanzees for 55 years, now as UN messenger of peace travels nonstop for 10 months of the year and has a grueling schedule. What’s her secret? She says that she doesn’t feel like she is aging and says she couldn’t have kept up with her current schedule 30 years back. Again it’s all about attitude.

The surest way to grow old fast is to worry about growing old. Experts say to avoid becoming old; activate our bodies and challenge ourselves intellectually.

Douglas MacArthur said - You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

Remember that age is just a number...with the right attitude, it's an irrelevant number!