Age Is(n’t) Just a Number
Daily Meditation #233–10/13/2022
Age actually is just a relatively arbitrary number. You’ve been alive for X rotations around our local star.
However, it also is a relative barometer of life experience and wisdom relating to it.
In short, we ought to respect those who hold age above us, for they have wisdom, however, their years are few.
As one ages, we realize more and more our fragility (or, we should), and that there is a mortal irony:
We are wealthier.
We have more friends than ever.
We are more emotionally intelligent.
We understand our individual body better than the last 60 years…
Yet, we now have few years with which to make the most.
Our wealth is reduced to nothing if we get cancer.
The many friends we’ve accumulated begin to pass.
Emotional intelligence cuts deeply as our empathy increases.
We better understand our body, but it aches and protests.
If you are young, listen well and don’t interrupt those two, three, or four times your years. You should certainly be able to separate their personal opinions out just as a thresher does wheat from chaff, but acknowledge they are a wellspring of knowledge.
Appreciate your elders for their wisdom and be conscientious of their limited time with us!
As for those who are young, we cannot risk quenching their fire within them. This is their passion. Though their serious lack of worldly experience may misguide them — heartbreak, financial errors (or ruin), drugs, or political differences — it is not our job to helicopter over them.
We can only provide them our stories, our experiences, and our advice and trust in them to plant these seeds, nourishing them into good choices.
And, perhaps worse for those of youth…
They are nearly as fragile as those elders — we all die, and no amount of years are promised! Your grandchild and grandmother, both, are just as likely to end up in an accident.
Being robbed of 50+ years is arguably more horrendous than 5.
So, in closing — heed well your elders. Respect and appreciate them, knowing the difference between opinion and good advice.
Love and appreciate the youth among us, be open minded to their new views, and gently help them along their way without manipulation — allow their own errors to guide them.
Follow for daily philosophical meditations.
These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
