Getting old is a weird thing. I'm just speaking from experience, so maybe it's different for other people, but getting old for me is about being tired AT ALL TIMES. Don't misunderstand, I usually do it to myself, but when you're young pulling all nighters, eating crappy food, and working out all the time is pretty easy to bounce back from. Now? Now I'm in a perpetual state of pain that always seems to say "You REALLY shouldn't have done that.
I like pain. Pain is a constant reminder that I'm still alive, my body still works, and that if something is wrong, I need to fix it. Pain is the body's way of telling you that what you're doing is probably wrong, temporary pain tells you that you may be getting stronger, long lasting pain may tell you that something is getting weaker. It is the way our bodies communicate with us. My favorite thing about getting old is that I feel like I've actually got a reasonable knowledge base. I could rattle off some kind of random word of advice to someone, but without experience, without truly suffering through the pain of learning that story, it lacks gravitas. This isn't to say that you can't give good advice to someone without experience, that's just not true. But the ability to testify to something because you've been a victim of it is much more powerful, though this too has it's limitations. Some would like to believe "Ah! I've been through this, so I know better than you," but often it isn't about what they experienced, but how it changed them. I'll use the example of having kids
When you're married and you bring up kids, you get a very different reaction depending on who you talk to about it. If you meet those parents that love their kids, they'll immediately say some kind of "Kids are hard work, but it's sooo worth it." And then when you have those parents (or anyone, really) that's had a bad experience with kids they will immediately, and very adamantly I might add, let you know that they kids are a curse, a blight on society, and they're just little monsters. So what does this say to you? To me, it says that everyone comes out of the same experience in a different way, but it goes back to what I'm always talking about; expectations.
Some people go into having kids thinking "this is gonna be great, they're so cute, and they're fun, and they're gonna love me, and they're going to make me so happy!!" These people? They're the miserable ones. You see, when you understand what the purpose of things are, you appreciate them in a different light, much similar to the example I gave about pain. If you understand that the purpose of children is to be excited about people seeing things for the first time, to bring a life into this world with the intention of giving them the best shot at this crazy place called living, you stop expecting kids to gratify you, and instead rejoice in their ability to grow, learn, and mature through their various experiences. Children aren't little monsters, they're children. They're just trying to figure things out the best they can with what they're given. Do you remember being that young? Do you remember just wanting to know what the best way to survive was? I would have loved for someone to sit me down, and let me know "Hey kid, it's gonna be alright, you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna learn a lot, and that's okay. The purpose of life is to grow, to change, and to learn, and if you're not doing that, you're not living." Just that simple basic outline of why I was here would have dramatically changed my perception, my decisions, and my accomplishments. Now I know, and I can look back in fondness on everything I've done. I was a dork, I was a loser, I was a fatty, I was an emo, and I was flamboyant, but I was okay. Don't forget your purpose, and if you don't know your purpose, find a good one. The world might be getting darker, but that just makes the light stand out more. I'm feeling old, but I'm still drinking this philosophy in a tea cup.
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