You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
– Samuel Ullman
Most of us must have heard of the oft-repeated phrase: “Age is just a number!” What it’s meant to imply is that our “age” is not defined by the number of years that we’ve been alive. But this phrase also doesn’t specify what, then, is “age” defined by?
I think this quote by Samuel Ullman very cleverly tells us what our “age” really is – a measure of the impact of our experiences.
I like the juxtapositions presented by the author – faith vs doubt, self-confidence vs fear, hope vs despair, and the way he related these to one’s “age”.
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When we are young, we have faith in ourselves, our families, our friends, our social and constitutional systems, etc. But over time, our faith gets slowly eroded.
First to go is our faith in the external systems – our governments, society, other individuals who are not directly linked to us. We begin to doubt that the system is rigged, that it favors those that run it, that it can be easily corrupted. We are constantly on the lookout for hidden agendas and gotchas. We don’t feel at peace until we can attribute a seemingly good action on someone’s part to some way in which that person benefits via that action, no matter how convoluted the logic behind that may be. It’s always easier to believe that instead of the possibility that someone may do something nice out of the goodness of their heart.
Then comes our faith in our friends and families. We doubt whether they always tell us the truth, whether they are cheating on us, whether we can rely on them.
Ultimately, we begin doubting ourselves. Whether we made the right choices, whether we are good enough to be someone better, whether we deserve even what we already have.
It’s not that these doubts are never valid. Some of them may very well be, some of the times. But as we “age”, and I don’t mean just physically, these doubts make a home for themselves in our hearts and minds. We are doubtful in every situation that we encounter, even when we don’t have a reason to be. For example, suppose in my thirties, I make a new friend. But if I have any sort of reservations or doubts about some of my existing friends, I’ll look at this new friend in the same light, even though she hasn’t done anything to deserve that.
We just can’t begin new relationships with the same level of faith and trust that we had when we were “younger”. I guess that’s why we see that our best and true friends are almost always from our younger days.
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The next thing the author talks about is self-confidence vs fear. Again, when we are young, nothing seems out of our reach. We see our whole lives in front of us, a blank canvas, just waiting to be painted however we want to.
But then we step into the world. We make mistakes, we fail, we lose what we value – possessions, health, loved ones. And, in the blink of an eye, time has flown by, and is staring at us in the rear view mirror. And we are still where we were at the beginning.
All this makes us fearful. Fearful of making mistakes, of failing, of being too late to do something about anything. That leaves us even more catatonic. And more fearful.
I remember when I was an undergrad, and learning a new programming language (which I loved at that time), I thought I could become the best programmer in the world in that language. I knew it would be difficult, that it would take effort, but I also had the confidence that it could be done. Now, having worked in the programming industry for a number of years, such “crazy” thoughts don’t even pop up in my head anymore. It’s not that they cross my mind and I convince myself that there are way better programmers than me, for me to become the best in the world. No. They just don’t appear in the first place itself. Call it the brazen arrogance of youth, now tempered with the reality of experience or whatever, but I feel a great loss to lose that kind of self-confidence and sense of possibility.
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Of course, not all of these may apply to everyone. I hope they apply to no one. And I’m sure there are people out there who have lived happy, long lives without being touched by “age”. I’m also sure, they must be the jolliest and youngest of us all.
But for the rest of us “old” souls: we can only reminisce about our “young” days. I don’t know if there’s any “anti-aging cream” that will reverse the side-effects of this aging process. We may be able to take certain prevention precautions, but I fear, a cure may not be possible.
But, if you happen to know the way to the fountain of eternal youth, please lead us to it. We’ll be eternally grateful to you! 😉
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