12 Simple Truths About Getting Older

Posted by Jill Chivers in Simple Truths

Getting older ii

Have you noticed the growing anti-aging movement? I have, and it worries me.

  1. Getting older is a natural part of life. It’s normal, expected, and an important part of this great journey we call life.
  2. Getting older doesn’t have to mean getting worse. The anti-aging movement seems to presuppose this is the case, which is why they are against ageing.
  3. Getting older can mean getting better. There are so many things that you know when you are older, that you cannot possibly know until you get to that age.
  4. When we interrupt the process of aging on a physical level, we assume that getting older and aging means becoming less beautiful, less attractive, less alive. This is a peculiar phenomenon in the Western world, as many ancient civilisations don’t hold this view. Not only do they venerate older citizens, but they appreciate their physical forms as they age, too.
  5. We would no more advocate interrupting or suspending the emotional, psychological and creative dimensions of a woman in her 20s than fly to the moon. In the Western world, we encourage women to fully become themselves as they grow older, and to express themselves in their full creative bloom as each year passes. We seem to recognise, in the West, that getting older can mean becoming more creative, more confident, more fulfilled, more able to discern what is of value and what is not. So why, when we encourage the full an ongoing development of a woman on those levels, do we wish to interrupt, suspend and curb the physical development of a woman once she reaches a certain age? Why, if you are a 50 year old woman, in full glorious living bloom, would you want to look like you are 30?
  6. It is insulting on almost every level to see an advertisement for anti-wrinkle creams featuring girls in their teens. These advertisements presuppose that aging one moment past the age of 25 is a curse.  It’s the same kind of thinking that causes some women to be mortified when they feel they look their age (or to be insulted if they are told they do).  It’s as if age in itself is a crime of some sort!
  7. It’s utterly insane to think that the only beautiful women are those who are under the age of 30.  The world is full of women who are even more beautiful and more interesting as they got older.
  8. You will never ever be truly happy or settled in your skin if some part of you believes it is wrong or unacceptable to get older, and to look older. A part of you will always be stuck on a hamster wheel (of someone else’s design), trying desperately to stop the clock, or wind back the clock, to make you look and feel younger than you are. That is an awful state of “never being happy with where you are right now” to live in. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
  9. Getting older is a privilege. It is benefit that not everybody gets to have. It should be treasured, looked forward to, embraced.
  10. You can become more beautiful, on every level, as you age. You can certainly become more interesting, and more confident, as you get older.
  11. Looking young, or even youthful, should not be the goal, not for any woman who wishes to love her life at every stage, and not bemoan the fact that she is now older, and perhaps looks it.
  12. I believe a better goal is to love looking more and more yourself, and love being yourself – as a vibrant, happy and fulfilled woman, as every year passes.

 

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