Every time I remember my age and realise I’m about to unleash an existential whinge, a particular season from my second year of university comes to mind: the one where my cohort was dangerously close to turning 20. Right, left, and centre, people lost their minds over the impending Sisyphean destiny of ‘adulting’, of becoming ancient overnight. Only, when the fateful day arrived, we discovered we were, somehow, pushing off in a new, glistening wave of youth. We blew out the candles, watching the angst evaporate. The new decade was already hailing promises of greater excitement and bigger opportunities, and we hadn’t even stepped off the welcome mat.
From a young age, we have been telling ourselves that we’re ‘getting too old’. It started off as the most stoic thing to do — plus, outgrowing Santa Claus and training wheels earnt us bragging rights on the playground. Then one day a classmate, only 11 days my senior, after sheepishly asking for my name a second time, laughed it off with a little quip about their failing memory. Even a birthday card lovingly thumped me on the back with casual ageist humour that year. Before long, I was echoing the exact same sentiment, when a familiar name refused to unstick itself from the tip of my tongue, when my shoulders got sore, when I resigned myself to clicking “Forgot Password?”
Over-identifying with our age makes for some great ironies. Does 30 Under 30 fill you with inspiration, or does it feel instead like some dreadful expiry date?
One afternoon in 2016, I sat down to peruse the family photo album with my youngest sibling. She pointed at a photo of herself taken two years prior, announcing proudly: “I was one-and-a-half there, only a baby!” It was so endearing that all the adults within earshot laughed. But I was simply stunned. I had just witnessed, in someone barely three, the quiet authority age can hold when you let it define you; how it transforms not only how you feel about yourself, but how you carry yourself going forwards.
It’s true that our physical, intellectual, and emotional capacities fluctuate over the course of our lives. This isn’t all bad news. If you allow it, change makes room for discipline and new growth. It’s also true that in this moment we are the oldest we’ve ever been. But what doesn’t make sense at all is how easily we surrender our strengths and unexplored potential because of a number, letting age-based expectations validate what we should or shouldn’t be doing. Each of us follows a unique trajectory of growth, fashioned by the combinations of experience we carry and continue to acquire. This gets lost in translation when distilled into a numerical age.
Back in Year 11, I took one glance around at my peers who had taken a foreign language subject since Year 9 and decided that, at 16, I was out of the running. Through internet osmosis, I knew no entiendo, a nauseous-sounding au revoir, and the awkwardly truncated German phrase Brot bitte (“bread, please”). Wasn’t the best age to learn a language during the early teens, or even before then? But I was never fussed to fact-check anything. What actually paralysed me was the dread of conjugating verbs and gendered grammar. I chose the easy way out. I remained stuck in neutral. It wasn’t until November 2024, after a conversation with a friend majoring in European studies, that I came to my senses. I got home, hopped on a brief Google spree to scope out my learning resources, and finally kicked off my German self-study journey. It’s slow progress, but at least I’m now aware that a more natural way to ask for bread in German is ich möchte ein Brot bitte.
Take a moment to think about the things you tell others you hope you’ll do one day: communicate in Wingdings, touch your toes, start investing — whatever. It still isn’t too late, really. And not because your prefrontal cortex isn’t finished with development until around 25 years of age. There’s contention surrounding this piece of research, but only because a structurally developing brain is often misinterpreted as an indicator of (im)maturity or a sign of peak cognitive flexibility — whichever makes for the convenient argument. It doesn’t mean that those below that numerical threshold are incapable of reasoned judgement or decision-making, and it sure doesn’t mean that those with fully-developed frontal lobes are henceforth doomed to ricochet every new piece of information either. Neuroplasticity is a lifelong superpower.
We are more resilient than we let on, even to ourselves. The hardest thing, though, is spending years mourning the window you thought you missed, only to realise it was never a window at all. It was a doorway, and it’s been open the whole time.
