Why Using Age As An Excuse Is A Really Bad Idea.
Age should never be a barrier to opportunities, so don’t make it into one.
Reasons why using age as an excuse is setting us up to fail
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and keeping up on technological developments and why it’s important.
Your brain needs exercise just like your body. Using your age as an excuse to stop learning, to stop contributing is a slippery slope to stagnation and irrelevance. Stay relevant, stay curious.
And I throw in some random inspirational facts about older people’s achievements to keep you inspired.
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Hello, and welcome to the very first full episode of Midlife Isn’t A Crisis with Christie Adams.
I want to tell you, ask you, beg you not to use age as an excuse. It’s something that it drives me crazy, and it was my motivational factor behind, or the main one behind, creating this podcast.
It drives me mad when I hear people saying ‘I am too old’ ‘I’ve left it too late’ ‘I can’t do that because I’m too old’.
And ironically, those people are usually mid-lifers.
You very rarely hear someone in their seventies or their eighties saying they’ve left it too late. They’re usually the ones who go out and grab things.
But a lot of mid-lifers have got into sort of this routine of wanting to allow themselves to get away with things because they think that they have left it too late. And it might be a deep seated fear or a doubt.
It might be laziness, but if you ever catch yourself saying ‘Well, oh no, no, I’m not into that. I’ve left that too late to learn that’.
Please stop.
There’s a few reasons why it’s a really bad idea apart from the fact that you’re not living your life to the full.
If you make excuses based on your age, the problem is it’s a bit like the cry wolf.
When you keep saying things are wrong, eventually somebody just won’t believe you anymore. And it’s similar to that when you make excuses based on your age, because if you’re constantly say, no, I can’t do that.
I’m too old.
I can’t do that.
I’m too old.
You really can’t complain when employers or colleagues or friends don’t even ask you anymore because they know that you will turn around and say, I’m too old to do that.
It might be a fantastic job opportunity that you’re losing out on.
It could be a social event, sports event. It could be anything.
It could be a life changing event that you miss out on because people just assume that you will make the usual excuse of being too old.
So please try and stop. I very rarely tell people how to live their lives and I’m not doing that now. I’m just explaining a few of the things that set you up for a negative mindset really, and well you’ll miss out on things.
The other thing as well is that you might be then judged on your own, but other people’s insecurities that if they think, you know, ‘I’m too old for that’ is that other people could be judged on your actions?
I am the first one to say that you’re independent, your actions don’t reflect on other people, look after yourself first, et cetera, et cetera.
But on this occasion, it is something that’s a sort of a community obligation.
Really if somebody sees you as the older member of the community, and that does happen in offices, in social occasions, et cetera, you’ll be seen as the parental figure.
Sometimes once you’re a mid-lifer, even if you’re only in your thirties or your forties, and certainly when you get into your fifties, I’ve encountered it that I’m sort of seen as the matronly older figure to look up to.
If you’re constantly giving them the impression that you’re too old to do things, and you’re constantly making excuses, there might be someone else who’s a similar age who’s really dynamic, really wants to get on once promotion, et cetera.
They won’t be given the opportunity because you’ve set the bar low for everyone else. I know that sounds awful, and you shouldn’t be judged for that, but just bear in mind that are you setting a stereotype, but you’re reinforcing that stereotype that you then don’t like being imposed on you.
That’s another thing to think about. Just think of everything that you learned at school and college and all the things that have set you up for the whole life beyond.
I know that you’ll have carried on learning since school, you might’ve gone to school not even knowing how to write your name.
You were only at school for probably 10 years, maybe 15 years but just think of all the stuff that you’ve learned since then that affected you for the rest of your life. Hopefully you’ve got at least another 10 years to go, if not 20, 30, 40, or 50, just think of the possibilities of all that time.
It’s amazing.
What’s ahead of you? Just think back to those 10 or 15 years and how much you progressed. I hated school to be honest, and I never felt that I did learn anything, but I did, the foundations of that is there is still there.
And even if it is just learning to read and write, I made my career around reading and writing now. So I can’t complain at that can I?
I would like to think I’ve got another 20, 30, 40 years left.
Just think of the possibilities in that timeframe.
The other thing as well, is a lot of the excuses people make about age are related to technology.
Not long back in a car sale, it was before all the lockdown, in a car sale showroom, a woman who was much younger than me, probably 10, 15 years younger than me didn’t know how to use her mobile phone because it was ‘technology’ and she didn’t like that sort of thing.
I thought that was really sad, that she’s walking around with this piece of technology that can make her life massively easier. It can keep her informed, keep her educated, keeping communication with people.
Just think of the lockdown around the globe and how much technology is coming to the fore with Zoom calls and Skype. It’s been massive.
It’s kept people mentally healthy as well as physically healthy. It’s kept them in touch with family across the globe, with news that they need on local events and with local sort of authorities and things like that.
It’s been massively important.
And that is the technology that some people still say, ‘Oh, I’ve left it too late to learn’ and you certainly haven’t. So if technology can make your life easier, then use it.
The other side to that is keeping educated because artificial intelligence, robots, AI, quite scary to think about it, but it’s here.
It’s in the world already.
There’s already Artificial Intelligence, writing articles in magazines that you won’t have even noticed. You may have a device in your room where you just call out a name and it responds and finds this podcast or a book, or turns the TV over or adds to your shopping list.
You can even get AI that switches your lights on and opens the curtains or shows you the doorbell when you’re on holiday. There’s so much technology out there. Now. It is not going back in the box.
It’s out there.
By saying that you’ve left it too late to learn, or you don’t understand it, well learn about it because it is massively important for your own wellbeing, both mentally and physically, but also for security and financial.
They reckon maybe in 10 years time cash won’t exist anymore.
There’s a lot of rebellion around it, but things move on. You know, we don’t use wooden huts anymore in this part of the world anyway, and going forward, things will change and I’m quite happy paying with Apple pay or on my credit card.
I do a lot of online shopping. I’m certainly not going to complain about it because I would have been totally lost without it lately.
The Artificial Intelligence is there and it can help you, but it also is something that you need to be aware of because you may need to protect yourself on the computer.
Security might change. There might be apps that are out there that are doing things in your area that you don’t particularly want in your area for your own wellbeing, but get educated, learn about it.
Stop using your age as an excuse.
I want to conclude that because I don’t want to get all preachy, but it just drives me crazy. When I hear people saying I’ve left it too late when they’re 10 years younger than me.
Knowledge is healthy.
It keeps your brain active.
Obviously, I’m a book lover you know I want you to read and write every day, and that keeps your brain healthy as your body. You know, you’re doing your exercise.
You’re going on your bikes. You’re going for your hikes and your walks or whatever. Then keep your brain healthy as well.
I’ve scribbled some facts down that I just wanted to share with you as examples, that if you’re going to use age as an excuse, stop it because these are the things that people have achieved later in life.
So I will just run through them and hopefully they’ll bring a smile to your face as well.
A man climbed Mt. Fuji in Japan aged 100 and you think, oh, he’s probably a mountaineer. The first time he climbed it, 89 years old.
John Glenn went back out into space at age 77.
A woman swam from Cuba to Florida when she was 64 and even better did it without a shark tank, which takes some bottle.
Colonel Sanders didn’t invent his chicken / shop until he got his first pension check at 65.
So that was a great pivot. And he was well ahead of his time getting a new career in his pension age.
That’s what I encourage all the time.
Roget, who write the thesaurus, which I always think of as a dinosaur, he was 73. So that was quite an achievement for him. I didn’t realize he was that old when that book came out.
Pot noodles vital for students, they were invented by somebody who was age 61, which is a bit random. You think they’d have been invented by an 18 year old? Yeah.
Cezanne, his first art exhibition, 56, not bad.
Mid-lifer Julia Child, her first book at 49 first cooking show at 51.
PG Wodehouse was still writing when he was 93.
So there’s no excuse to say ‘I’ve left it too late to write my book.’ You certainly haven’t.
And the last one, which I’ve kept, especially because I think it’s so important and life changing.
The safety pin, the safety pin was invented by somebody who was age 53.
So next time you hear yourself saying I’m too old or I’ve left it too late.
Just stop yourself.
You haven’t shifted your mindset.
Get online, get in our community and start thinking positively about your future.
And if you keep making excuses stop it.
Okay, that’s it for now catch you next time!