When we are asked our age, it's an invitation to box us into cultural portals defined by groupthink. But if we decide to deny the labeling, we must give the inquisitors of time permission to not like our response. Focusing on age as identity of selfhood, is a distraction from cultivating character and achievements.
When meeting a potential friend or romantic partner, age is usually one of the first questions asked. Age becomes a marker to define and behave based on preconceived notions determined by how long one has existed.
If identity is reduced to age, it encourages dialogue within parameters dictating what to expect and how to interact assuming level of maturity, stability, and potential future. Yet, age is a poor predictor of the qualities we ascribe to the effect of time on selfhood.
It's essential, however, to understand the subtleties involved in how age identity is detrimental to gracefully growing older. Cultures determine how one should act, dress, and live according to age with little awareness of how biology responds to collective beliefs. I argue in my books and courses that, while growing older is merely the passing of time, aging is how we respond to time based on the beliefs we assimilate from our cultures.
Aging-consciousness promotes a self-fulfilling prophecy of diminishing mindbody becomingness: Biology hostage to cultural impositions.
But, there's a better way. Choosing a path of ageless-consciousness shields selfhood from the cultural sirens luring biology to capitulate in the face of cultural mandates.
For more mindbody tools register for my webinars