Ageless Wonder

Editor’s Note: Jennifer Senior ‘s provocative article in the February issue of The Atlantic deals with how old we feel versus how old we are.  She also was interviewed recently on a KQED/San Francisco podcast, from which I gleaned this article.  Thanks to Ying-Ying Yuan, a frequent AgeSpots poster, for bringing it to my attention.

Senior cites scientific studies that reveal that people 40 and older feel twenty percent younger than their actual age, while people 25 and younger see themselves as older.  Why 25? 

“It is when your prefrontal cortex stops developing,” she notes, adding that for some irrational reason, you also cannot rent a car unless you are 25 or older.  Most likely, she notes, that age point is significant because we have many of our first experiences between the ages of 15-25—a first date, a first kiss, a first car, a first job—or, more disturbingly, a significant trauma or life change.

Senior says that rather than asking people, “how old do you feel,” one might instead ask, “how old are you in your head?” 

All of us can pinpoint a time and age where the world was open to us, anything was possible, and life was ideal.  For me, that age would be 25, when I worked in a New York City public relations agency and was given a new account--a floundering New York radio station that shifted to all-disco overnight and changed the market forever.

It was sublime to be on a disco dance floor for hours as one song morphed into the next with hundreds of happy bodies around me.  The whole city throbbed with disco sounds—on the streets, in stores and in clubs.  There simply was no better place to be.  Ecstasy without the actual drug.

Now, people I’ve known for a long time tell me I haven’t aged a bit.  People I meet cannot believe I’m 70 years old (I guess because I’m not wearing SAS sandals, Wal Mart pull on pants and support hose!) I just shrug.  I’m fit, thin and dress stylishly and don’t complain (much) about aches and pains—what my husband calls “the organ recital.”

Senior suggests that people who see themselves as younger will age better. Additionally, if you maintain a positive attitude toward aging, you will age well, studies suggest.  

So, how old are you, really?