As I was scrolling through Twitter the other day, I came across this video of three beautiful women who had been labelled “aunties” before someone else pointed out that they are only 34-year-olds. It made me chuckle because my birthday is in a few short weeks and I still can not believe that I will be turning 37. I’m tempted to argue that I must be younger because I definitely do not feel as old as 37 sounds, but I have physical copies of my birth certificate that corroborate this fact so it must be true.
Having said that, I don’t feel the tiniest bit sad about getting older, if anything I’m quite excited by the thought. I’m also quite literally an aunty to my nephson and have long embraced the title and have been living my best rich aunty life for the past few years.
For some people, the thought of getting older fills them with dread for various reasons. We set arbitrary deadlines for ourselves on what we should accomplish by a certain age. There are also societal as well as personal expectations of how we should act past a certain age. This translates to abandoning the things that bring joy because we believe that we’re now past the age of enjoying those things. Some others might dwell on the things they perceive as shortcomings when compared to their peers. Neither of these makes for a happy life, and I can attest because this used to be me.
I’m not sure exactly when things changed but I do know that what changed things for me was the realization that everything is made up. At least that is my personal philosophy these days. Minus things that are affected by human biology/physiology, most of the “rules” we tend to live by are made up and can vary widely across different groups so they probably shouldn’t have such a strong hold on the way we live our daily lives.
Based on the lives of the people around me, there are so many things my younger self expected I’d have done/experienced by now, which still haven’t happened and may never happen, but I’m still here, and life is still good.
On the subject of things that may never happen, I’ve lived long enough to know not to say never because the human experience is very dynamic.
I recently learnt about the end of history illusion. A scientific paper published in 2013 showed that we are not very good predictors of how much our lives can and do change. Despite acknowledging how much things have changed in the past, we underestimate how much change can still happen. Our personalities, values and preferences can change over time and this can impact almost all aspects of our lives, from careers to relationships and everything in between.
It, therefore, makes sense for the choices and decisions we made based on our former values and preferences to change if/when there is a shift in our current values and preferences. Once upon a time, I dreamed of a job that involved lots of travelling, I imagined that it would be a great way to see the world while earning lots of money. Things have since changed. I now enjoy having routines and being able to stick to them, so the job I’d previously dreamed about would probably make me miserable today.
When we think of our current selves as the final version, we are more likely to overinvest in our future decisions based on our current preferences. On the other hand, when we acknowledge the fact that there is no way to predict possible changes to our future preferences, we are more likely to let go of our past decisions with the realization that they were based on things we no longer believe or value.
This practice of allowing ourselves to change/pivot as many times as necessary can be challenging. Our values, personalities and preferences all make up our identity and we do not like to think of our identities as unstable, so we stick to that job/ partner/ country we chose many years ago, even when that choice is no longer serving (and is possibly harming) us. Personally, I don’t consider myself as having an unstable identity. Instead, I consider myself as being made up of many selves who just happen to like different things at different points in my journey through life.
I don’t feel plagued by uncertainty about how I might change as I continue to grow older. Going by the changes I’ve observed in myself over the past 5 years alone, I’m quite excited to meet and experience my future selves, and I wish that for you as well.
This week I read
This interesting article which aptly summarizes the main reason why I currently have no desire to be a social media influencer.
This week I listened to
Writer Greg Campion interview psychologist Dr Hal Herschfield on the Intentional Wisdom podcast. They talk mostly about Dr Herschfield’s new book - Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. This episode was perfectly timed for me because it’s where I learnt of the end of the world illusion. His book sounds like it would make a good read.
I also listened to myself on the second episode of our baby podcast. To be over honest, I did not like how I sounded on the recording. So much that I very nearly almost begged my friends not to air the episode but I found out from speaking to a few other people that this is quite common. I did enjoy the conversation though, so if you’re curious to hear what I sound like and meet the less serious version of me, you should listen. We are still trying to figure things out so forgive any wonky bits. Feedback is also welcome and appreciated.
"As we live our lives, we find ourselves confronted with a brute fact about how little we can know about our futures—just when it is most important to us that we do know. For many big life choices, we only learn what we need to know after we've done it, and we change ourselves in the process of doing it. I'll argue that, in the end, the best response to this situation is to choose based on whether we want to discover who we'll become."
I’ve just returned from a little weekend away with some of my best girls so I’m feeling very happy and blessed. It takes a lot of moving parts for a girl’s trip involving 4 healthcare workers to actually happen and we have the BMA to thank for playing a major role. I still have nothing planned for my birthday but I’m quite looking forward to it. I should put together and share my annual birthday wishlist soon.
I hope you are well. Here is wishing you a week of celebrating the present while eagerly looking and working toward the future you desire.