“Live while you have the chance”
When we are young, we often don’t think about the person we will be when we are 30 or 40. In fact, we don’t even think of ourselves reaching that age. It all seems to come back to the stigma attached to growing old. But, it doesn’t have to be such a bad thing. We often hear middle aged women talk about how young people should, ‘live while you have the chance’, or thinking aloud with, ‘I wish I was your age again.’ Why do they have such strong views on youth? It’s one of two things: the regret of not living their lives to the fullest or wishing they could go back to their favourite years of their lives.
Think about it this way: the younger generation (and I’m guilty of it myself) seem to focus all their time and energy on looking young and staying thin. An obsession to stay young and beautiful is not worth the worry, aging is inevitable, and there is literally nothing we can do about it. The opportunities we have at a young age should not be taken for granted, but we don’t want to focus our energy on this worry that we will turn old and, god forbid, wrinkly. There is nothing wrong with growing old, it’s an achievement and a beautiful thing. Young people have their whole lives ahead of them and shouldn’t limit themselves because of the fear of growing old.
The fear of growing old is even bigger when self hate is in control, and before we know it, a whole chunk of our lives has been taken out, ripped to pieces and thrown into a black hole never to be seen again. And by the time we reach our 30’s we wonder, ‘where did that time go?’ There’s nothing worse than looking back over your years and only remembering the worry and guilt.
It’s time to focus on the future you and give them a break. Rather than focussing on how you want your life now, think about how you will want your life in 30 years’ time. I guarantee you won’t focus on being young. You’ll be focussing on children, husbands, wives, careers and catching up with old friends. In other words: the important things in life.
In 30 years’ time you will look at your body and think, ‘thank you, self, you got me to where I am today and I couldn’t be happier.’ Well, wouldn’t that just be ideal?
Want to get there? Say ‘yes’ not ‘no’ when an opportunity arises, it may well turn into a life changing thing that benefits the you now and the you in the future. A happy present you means a happy you in 30 years. We can develop a habit of keeping a bad attitude at a young age and sometimes it’s unfortunate when that bad way of thinking grows with you into older adulthood. Don’t carry a bad attitude towards yourself and towards life into the future; it’s something your children will inherit. Then the cycle goes on and on and positivity will soon be a thing of the past, leaving life as we know it an unliveable beast of a thing. Develop a can-do philosophy and keep it under your hat to travel with you on your journey to adulthood. I think you’ll find that regret and the need to be young and thin will not be a factor in your life.
After all, don’t you want to look in the mirror in 30 years and see laughter lines rather than worry lines?
Do you worry about growing older? How do you want to see yourself in 30 years?
