Today, I turned 23, and I've gotta say, time goes by so fast. If you're wondering if I feel old, no, not really. Quite the opposite really.. I feel like I'm still 16 or something in a way. Is that a good, or a bad thing? Well, it depends on how you look at it. Let me elaborate..
First of all, I'll start with the social side, and I'll note that I've never felt a certain age. Only when I was a kid I felt that it was important, and after I became a teenager, it kind of dozed off. It was not important anymore for me. I slowly came to realize that age is not that relevant. It has more to do with your mind than with your physical age, if you want to call it that. When I was a kid, I always saw people that were older than me in a certain way, like they were people to look up to. Almost like they were "elders", if you know the meaning of that word. You can see elders as people to guide younger people that have incredible wisdom so to speak. As I grew, I came to realize that everyone, no matter how old (based on calendar age), is still simply just like me, and they've had certain experiences, which change their views and lets them be wiser than someone that has had less experience in a certain area (in theory anyway).
When I realized that, I suddenly realized something important. In order to become wiser by an experience, you need to be aware of that experience, and more aware you are, more you'll learn.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Of course, that's logical". Yes, it is, in theory. Most people know this, but, they don't apply it well enough since they usually eliminate a lot of information within a certain experience, kind of undermining the wisdom they can draw from it. As an example, a lot of people don't notice the influence that they have on others, particularly the bad influence. They only see the hurt that others have caused them, and not the hurt that they cause others. In a way, it's understandable, since you need to take care of yourself first before you take care of others, however, if you are more aware of what you do to others, you are also more aware of yourself, and that's the key to being more mature.
How does this tie into age? Well, it's simple really. I kind of already explained it. Depending on how you used your experiences, you can kind of extrapolate that into how "old" or "mature" you are. As an example, an 18 year old that reflects a lot on his actions, can be a lot more mature than a 40 year old that plays victim all the time. In that sense, how old you are and how many you've experienced, is not important, it's how you go about in life and how efficient you are about using your experiences. Self-reflection is one of the most important things that one can do. And in my opinion birthdays should be about this.
In current days, birthdays have kind of lost their purpose in my opinion. Usually, people go out and get drunk, or throw a party and get drunk, get gifts and get drunk.. You get the point. Your birthday is something that happens every year in a consistent manner. If there's any time/place that one should reflect about oneself it's this time. What did I do wrong last year? What can I do better? Did I hurt anyone? Why did others hurt me? etc etc. You should always do it, but, this is a good start anyway..
Also, what do you gain by having a party? Don't get me wrong. If you want to party and it makes you happy, do so. If you like gifts, encourage others to give you some gifts. It's all up to you. However, don't forget that doing that will not give you anything valuable in the long run. Your gifts may grow old or break, your party was temporal. You might be happy that day, but what happens the day after that because of the party? Or the week after that? The month after that? A lot of people even see birthdays as a day to do whatever they like, which is the complete opposite of what I think it should be. I think it might be some sort of escape for some people. Well, you won't escape from this reality, that's for sure. The next day everything will still be the same. The only way to "escape" is to be content with yourself, and that's what we all should be striving for, and not temporal stuff without any real value.
Have some alone time the day before or after the party to reflect on yourself, to allow yourself to grow a little mentally. In the end, the social aspect of how you deal with others is more important than your party or your gifts. If you remain an asshole, people will not like you more after your birthday party. In the end, we are social beings, and if there's one thing that we need to develop is the way we interact with others. Without others, you would have no party, without others, you would have no gifts, so always do better than yourself, and evaluate yourself. And the way to do that, is to look at yourself.
Ok, we've had the social talk, now, lets go to biology. I'll keep this one short, but basically it comes down to, what you believe about yourself, your body (or brain, usually both) will try to replicate it. If you think you're old, you will feel old. If you think you're young, you will feel young. This determines your self-image, and this will be reflected and expressed in your appearance or "aura", and also by the cells in your body. If you think this is mumbo jumbo, suit yourself. I'll post a video at the end of this blog by PhD Bruce Lipton, and you can judge yourself.
Anyway, this, and self-reflection play an important role together. When you reflect on yourself, and you are more aware of yourself, you know when you're doing better, and this will give you a positive attitude towards yourself, and this will feed your body, mind, and the people around you with some positivity. The more you do this, the more you grow as a person, and the less old you'll become. In other words, your wisdom rises, but your apparent age does not grow as rapidly as your calendar age.
Ok, this was my birthday rant, if you read through it, congrats, if you didn't, well, then you're not reading this part so I have nothing to tell you xD. Live your life however you want to, just don't get caught up in fantasies and forget about yourself..
Cheers.
Biology videos:
Bruce Lipton - The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet 1 of 2
