Growing Old: The Lessons Youth Must Learn Before Time Teaches Them

There are things youth knows only through the arrogance of not knowing. There are things old age knows only because time has taken them away. Growing old is perhaps the most democratic law of existence. No throne has ever negotiated with it. No beauty has ever seduced it. No wealth has ever bribed it. No degree, title, political office or intellectual brilliance has ever persuaded time to make an exception.

Kings grow old. Beggars grow old. Presidents grow old. Celebrities grow old. The beautiful and the ordinary, the powerful and the powerless, all walk slowly and inevitably towards the same horizon. Old age is not a punishment. It is a destination. And perhaps the greatest tragedy is not that we grow old, but that we often arrive there without having learned how to live.

The Years Disappear Quietly

Life seems long when we are young because the future appears endless. At ten, thirty seems ancient. At twenty, forty seems distant. At thirty, fifty still feels comfortably far away. Then suddenly one discovers that yesterday's child has become today's parent, yesterday's parent has become today's grandparent, and the person looking into the mirror is carrying a face that time has been quietly writing upon for decades.

The years do not leave with trumpets. They leave quietly. One birthday follows another. One Eid becomes another Eid. One Christmas becomes another Christmas. Children are born, grow up, leave home and have children of their own.

And one day we ask ourselves: Where did all the time go? The psychologist Erik Erikson described the later stage of life as a struggle between integrity and despair, a period when people look back upon their lives and ask whether they can accept the life they have lived or whether they are haunted by regret. The desirable outcome, in Erikson's view, is wisdom. That is a profound lesson for the young. Old age begins long before the wrinkles. It begins with the choices we make while we are young.

A Message to the Young

Perhaps one of the greatest things society failed to tell us when we were young was this:

• You will not remain young.
• We were told to pursue money.
• We were told to become successful.
• We were told to build houses, acquire cars, obtain degrees and secure positions.

But were we sufficiently told to protect our health? Were we told to protect our relationships? Were we told to forgive? Were we told that the friend we are fighting today may be the person we desperately wish to see tomorrow? Were we told that the parent we are ignoring today will not necessarily be alive when we finally become successful? Were we told that children eventually leave? Were we told that applause disappears? Were we told that there comes a time when possessions matter less than peace? Perhaps not.

The famous saying that “youth is wasted on the young” captures this paradox, although the precise attribution to George Bernard Shaw is disputed. The deeper truth, however, is unmistakable: Youth possesses energy before it possesses wisdom. Old age possesses wisdom after much of the energy has disappeared. What a strange arrangement.

Psychologist Carl Jung expressed a related idea in the often-cited observation that “life really does begin at forty,” suggesting that the earlier years are a period of preparation and discovery. Perhaps what we need, therefore, is to teach the young to borrow wisdom from the old before time forces them to purchase it with regret.

Every Choice is a Message to Your Future Self

The body remembers what youth does not respect. The food we eat today negotiates with the body we will inhabit tomorrow. The sleep we sacrifice today may become the weakness we complain about tomorrow. The habits we cultivate today become the character we carry into old age. So too with the mind.

Hatred practiced for decades becomes a prison. Envy becomes exhausting. Pride destroys relationships. Unforgiven grievances become invisible luggage carried into old age. But kindness compounds too. So does patience. So does generosity. So does forgiveness. Every action is an investment in the person we shall eventually become. The young sometimes imagine that consequences belong to the future. They do not.

The future is simply the place where today's decisions eventually arrive.

Not Every Battle is Worth Fighting

Youth often mistakes loudness for strength. Age teaches something different. The older we become, the more we understand that not every insult requires an answer, not every disagreement deserves war, and not every enemy deserves our hatred. Some battles are too expensive to win.

You may defeat the person in front of you and still lose your peace. You may win an argument and lose a friendship. You may prove that you were right and discover, years later, that being right was less valuable than being kind. Peace is not weakness. Sometimes peace is the highest form of intelligence. The mature person gradually learns to distinguish between what is important and what is merely noisy.

When the Children Leave

Perhaps nothing announces old age more painfully than the departure of children. The little hands that once held ours eventually become strong enough to let go. They go to senior high school, and then to university. Home became home during vacations. Gradually they graduate. They find employment. They marry. They travel. They establish homes of their own. The house that once echoed with children's voices becomes quiet. And parents discover that raising children is, in some ways, preparing them to leave. Some children remember. Cellphones and social makes it possible for you to be in touch. Others forget. Some return with gratitude. Others return only when they need something.

But parents must learn another difficult lesson: We must not live only for our children. Human goodness must extend beyond the family. A meaningful life is not measured only by the number of children we raise, but also by the number of lives we touch. Sometimes a stranger remembers a kindness that a relative has forgotten.

Sometimes the person we helped casually remembers us for the rest of his life. Therefore, let kindness be given without an invoice. Do good because goodness is good. Not because you are waiting for applause.

The House will not Follow You

There comes a time when the things we spent our lives acquiring begin to look strangely ordinary. The house becomes walls. The car becomes metal. The clothes become fashion belonging to another generation. The office receives another occupant. The title is transferred. The money is inherited. The property passes to people who may never know the sacrifices that produced it. And the applause becomes silence.

The Roman statesman Cicero, reflecting on later life, famously wrote about old age as a time when one may reap the “harvest” of blessings secured earlier in life. That harvest is not necessarily money. It is memory. It is friendship. It is character. It is the knowledge that one's life mattered. The greatest inheritance is not what we leave behind in banks and buildings, but what we leave behind in human beings.

The Table Becomes Quiet

Old age also teaches the cruel arithmetic of absence. Friends disappear. Brothers and sisters die. Parents are long gone. Classmates become names in old photographs. People with whom we once laughed until midnight become memories. Eventually, old photographs may contain more dead people than living ones. The dining table that once overflowed with conversation becomes quieter. This is when loneliness introduces itself. And with loneliness comes reflection.

• Why did I waste so much time angry?
• Why didn't I visit my mother more often?
• Why did pride separate me from my brother?
• Why didn't I tell that person I loved them?
• Why did I spend so many years chasing things that finally meant so little?
• Why didn’t I help my friend Abukari when I had the resources?
• Why? Why?? Why???

These are questions no young person wants to hear. But perhaps they are precisely the questions young people need to hear.

Age is a University

Old age is not merely a biological condition. It is a university. The wrinkles are lessons. The grey hair is history. The slower walk is a reminder that the body has carried us through seasons that the young have not yet experienced. To grow old is therefore not necessarily to become weaker. It is to become a living archive.

But there is an art to growing old. One can grow old physically without becoming wise. One can accumulate years without accumulating understanding. One can become seventy and still behave like seventeen. Age alone does not produce maturity. Experience must be reflected upon before it becomes wisdom.

What Should We Leave Behind?

The question at the end of life is unlikely to be: How many arguments did I win? It will not be: How many people did I defeat? Nor: How expensive was my car? Perhaps the deeper questions will be:

• Whom did I love?
• Whom did I help?
• Whom did I forgive?
• Whose life became better because I lived?
• Did I use the time given to me wisely?

Victor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, built much of his thought around the human search for meaning. His central insight was that a meaningful life is not simply about pleasure or success, but about finding purpose even in suffering and difficulty. That may be one of life's greatest lessons. We are temporary custodians. We borrow breath. We borrow health. We borrow relationships. We borrow wealth. We borrow positions. We borrow time. Eventually, everything is returned.

So, Young People, Listen With Rapt Attention!

• Do not wait until your hair turns grey before learning gratitude.
• Do not wait until your parents die before appreciating them.
• Do not wait until sickness arrives before respecting your body.
• Do not wait until your friends disappear before valuing friendship.
• Do not wait until old age before learning forgiveness.
• Do not spend your youth believing that tomorrow is guaranteed.

Rather,

• Build --- but do not worship what you build.
• Work --- but do not sacrifice every relationship for work.
• Seek wealth --- but do not become poor in spirit.
• Defend yourself --- but do not make enemies unnecessarily.
• Dream --- but remember that life is more than achievement.
• And above all, learn to live before you become too old to enjoy what you spent your youth trying to obtain.

Every sunrise is an announcement. Another portion of your invisible lifetime has been spent. Another page has turned. Another drop has left the glass. So use today's drop wisely. Because one day, whether we are ready or not, the glass will be empty.

And when that day comes, the question will not be: “How long did you live?” It will be: “What did you do with the life you were given?” That is the lesson of growing old. And perhaps it is a lesson the young should hear before they become old enough to understand it.

FUSEINI ABDULAI BRAIMAH
+233208282575 / +233550558008
afusb55@gmail.com

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