Getting old sucks.
That’s the nicest way I can put it.
So imagine my horror last week when Amber had me convinced I was a year older than I actually was.
For 4 excruciating days, I thought I was 37.
37…. That’s almost 40, which is almost 60, which is almost 80, which means I’ll be in a nursing home before I can blink twice.
I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t you just do the simple math?
Because I didn’t want to know the answer. A world where I think I’m 36 and Amber thinks I’m 37 is a much better world than a world in which I really am 37 (confirmed by mathematics).
Luckily, while I was whining about being 37 to Cassidy during one of our workouts, she did the math for me and indeed confirmed I was only 36.
Ahhhh, young again. Finally.
On the bright side, my suffering was not for nothing. While I was holding hands with grim reaper during those 4 days, I had the opportunity to think about age. And by that, I mean, I attempted to convince myself that our age shouldn’t be the sole determinant of how old we are.
To most, the following two questions result in the same answer :
What is your age?
How old are you?
But, after my brief time socializing with the grim reaper, I realized those are two entirely different questions which can have two entirely different answers.
Your age may not really be how old you are.
It’s possible that it’s just an objective measurement used by insurance companies, drug manufacturers, and the government to put us in nice, neat categories to make their jobs easier and more lucrative. Quite the conspiracy theory, right?
Case in point, Joe Dona. If you ask Joe his age, he’d answer 90. If you asked him how old he was, he’d just smile. At the age of 90, he flies out to Vegas 5 or 6 times per year. He hauls equipment 300, 400, and even 600 miles. If you closed your eyes and asked him about the old Gillespie-Benld football rivalries, you’d swear the guy sitting across from you telling you story after story after story just graduated from high school last year. The youthful enthusiasm in his voice, the clean, crisp memories, and the half chuckle after each story would almost certainly sound like someone who can’t even buy a pack of cigarettes yet.
The same could have been said about Christina (Chris) Stewart. She may have died at the age of 92, but I don’t know if she every outgrew her 20’s.
I’m sure if I had more time I, as well as you, could think of a handful more of people just like Joe and Chris who prove my point.
But if age doesn’t work, what should determine how we answer – How old are you?
Is it the amount of gray hair (or lack thereof) we’ve earned?
Or, could it be the total number of life experiences we have had?
Maybe it’s what life stage we’re at – a kid, a parent, a grandparent?
How about the accumulated number of times we’ve visited a hospital?
The number of wrinkles we have?
The number of prescription medications we’re on?
How many colonoscopies we’ve had?
The number of high school classmates still living?
How much you can lift, how fast you can run, or how high you can jump?
Meh.
Those all seem to be as inaccurate as using age to determine how old someone is. I could think of 3 or 4 people almost immediately that would have been misclassified as being old using any one of those questions.
So I tossed and turned for 3 nights wrestling with that question. Finally, I had it.
It’s the ratio between the number of times a person says, “I can.” vs. the number of times he says, “I can’t.” in a week.
The higher the ratio, the younger he is. The lower the ratio, the older he is.
What do you think?
Humor me for just a second.
I took a good, long look at my life and those around me that led me to that answer.
I asked things like:
Who did I enjoy being around?
What did they all have in common?
What brings me happiness?
What seems to be the repeated theme in every young person I meet?
Every one of those questions led back to the same answer
It’s no secret that one of the greatest enjoyments I get from the gym is training young athletes. I thoroughly enjoy every second of it. When I stopped doing that for 6 months, I lost a little pep in my step, and it was immediately noticeable. You could say I grew old.
Amber often jokes that the only friends I have anymore are high school and college athletes. Behind every joke, there’s a little bit of truth, and behind that one, there’s a lot of it. She was right. Outside of the pharmacy, Ageless, and my family, my only interactions were with those who couldn’t even legally drink.
At first, I was embarrassed by that. Am I one of those old guys trying to stay young by being around younger people? Am I really that guy? Dear Lord, please don’t let me be that guy.
Once again, I was in a place of excruciating discomfort.
But then I thought about Taber and children in general. Now that Taber is, 5 the most common question Amber and I receive is – When are you having another one?
And of course we’re going to have another one…. or two……. or three, but not just yet.
Again, I know what you’re thinking. You’re 36 T.J.. Most people your age are done or almost done having kids by 36. What are you thinking? Your youngest kid will graduate from college the same day he puts you in a nursing home. Yikes
I don’t care though. I’m going to have kids until I’m in my 50’s and here’s why. This also just happens to be the same reason I spend so much time with high school and college athletes.
As soon as I lose the daily interaction with a young, imaginative child, I’ll instantaneously get old. I’m as sure about that as I am about the sun rising tomorrow morning.
I can’t imagine living in a house that doesn’t believe in Santa or monsters under the bed or unicorns or the ability to fly with a sprinkle of pixie dust or the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny.
How boring would that be?
Without magic, without constant interaction with an unapologetic, unlimited imagination, youth is lost. We age. We get old.
The fountain of youth isn’t a spring located in the middle of a jungle nor is it found in a pill or potion. It’s being around a kid that still believes in Santa. So when I’m 50 and I’m still waking up at 3am on Christmas morning to hide presents under the tree, I, like Joe and Chris, can smile because we understand the secret of becoming ageless.
See, I don’t hang around these young athletes because they make me feel young. I hang around them because like Taber (and future children), they make me young. They all live in a world filled with belief and hope and dreams. And it’s because of that they say “I can” over and over and over again. It’s that joyful optimism that makes them young. Plus, it’s much more fun to talk about unicorns and tea with princesses than it is about bills and colonoscopies.
Seriously though, just think about it.
How many times a week do you say I can’t?
I can’t run a mile.
I can’t take a walk on a beautiful fall night.
I can’t have a snowball fight with you.
I can’t meet you for lunch.
I can’t go back to college and get a different degree even though I hate my current job.
I can’t learn how to play piano at my age.
One “I can’t” snowballs into a hundred and then into a thousand and before you know it “I can’t” becomes your automatic response to everything. You become a spectator in this game we call life. Worse yet, you become so disgruntled on the sidelines that you start telling other people they can’t do things. You mock people who try and fail or you become jealous of those that succeed. That’s the definition, my definition, of growing old.
Did you always put limits on yourself? Were you always scared to dream? Did you always avoid failure?
Or, when you were “younger”, even in high school and college, did you dream and say “I can” to damn near everything?
Wasn’t life much more enjoyable back then?
Joe could easily say no to a trip to Vegas. “I’m 90 years old. I can’t fly out to Vegas at 4am.”
Christina could have easily stopped going to the Miners’ basketball games. “I’m 92 years old. I can’t sit on those hard bleachers for 4 quarters.”
But they didn’t, and that’s the beauty of this new theory on aging. We don’t have to get old. It’s a choice. It happens not because another year passes, but because we stop saying “I can” to things. We forget that life is meant to be experienced. It’s constantly asking things of us, and those who say “I can” are those that truly live, love, and laugh.
Of course, I would love to say I’m immune to this, that I always feel young, but I’m not. There are times, even days when I feel old and crabby. Every time that happens though, I can almost immediately diagnose the issue – I’m not saying “I can” enough. And because of that, small things, things that shouldn’t bother me, do, creating a vicious cycle of grumpiness.
Who wants to be around that?
So, the next time someone asks you, “How old are you?”, really think about that question before you say a number. No one wants to get old, nor does anyone have to. Like we say at Ageless, age is nothing but a number. Forever fit. Forever young!
