I enjoy getting older. I’ve known this for a long time. I’d say it basically started around the time I started weight lifting. This took place a few years ago at this point. I would have been around 35 at the time, I’m now 38. A comfortable, awesome 38.
For me, getting older means getting wiser. You accumulate knowledge as you experience life. But more than that, it’s the comfort that comes with age I enjoy most. I do have to be honest and say that this is partially induced by my anxiety reducing supplement I take, Rhodiola Rosea . It takes a huge load off for me. But, I can’t attritbute all of my growth onto it. It’s not magic. Time has done a lot of the heavy lifting. Time. And self reflection.
I take Rhodioila Rosea for the overthinking problem I have with ADD. I used to see someone in a grocery store and wonder about their entire life. I’d paint a picture in my head of what their backstory was. And I would do this with everyone. I’d get directions from my boss, and wonder what the meaning was behind the words they just said. In retrospect, it was exhausting, and wasted a lot of time and energy, but when it’s how you think it’s how life works, you grind through it. The supplement ended all that for me, almost immediately, making it possible for real growth to start for me.
Now, this isn’t an advertisement for my favorite wonder drug (but if you struggle with running thoughts, get it checked out…I cannot stress enough how happier I am now), this is my waxing on the wonders of time. On the gift of age.
Like any bonafide old person will tell you, getting old sucks for the body. There’s no arguing that. Yes, weight lifting, and eating a good diet can get you into great shape for your entire life if you choose, but no amount of creatine or progressive overload can help me with my dry eye disease, or my wife’s sjogren's syndrome. Those are things you have to learn to live with. But, aside from that real trade off, getting old is awesome.
All those old people you know who are cool as shit because they don’t care about what other people think? That becomes you. It’s so cool. Those old people who give great advice because they’ve lived, and understand that 80-90 years really isn’t that long, that also becomes you.
And appreciating. Trying to slow yourself down to enjoy things, that has become me. Burning through life, trying to get to something in the future instead of enjoying what’s right in front of you (the only time you will ever have), it’s no way to live.
Getting old, it’s something we should all strive for. And, as we do it, we’ve gotta make sure we’re good stewards to the young people. Yeah, they have terrible taste in TikTok videos, and couldn’t overseed a lawn to save their lives, but still, they too will one day be old, and we have to help guide them on that journey, as the awesome old people we remember from our youths once did for us.