10 Jan A Particularly Pesky Bottom-Dweller
January 10, 2011
When you travel the vast terrain of western culture, you will often encounter various swamplands, each with its own assortment of lies and skewed perspectives waiting to leech onto you if you venture into them.
One particularly pesky bottom-dweller is the current popular notion of idealized youth and devalued age. Like other leeches, it is eager to latch on and slowly drain away life. The “younger is better” message awaits us at every turn: magazines at the grocery check-out; commercials on tv; movies and music; and of course, many of the younger ones among our families and friends. Their messages are sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle and unintentional.
But really, like so many other areas of life, age is not a question of better, but different. Each age and stage of life has its strengths and weaknesses, just like individual people, just like so many other things in life.
- Is it better to be 20, with an unlined face and idealistic goals, or 60 with lines and decades of experience and wisdom?
- Is it better to be 32 and in the middle of your dream job, or 57, with 2 satisfying jobs behind you, and finally with time to learn to paint or write or wind-surf?
- Is it better to be a 25 year-old singer, collaborating with gifted people, or a 70 year old missionary, still teaching people about an infinite Creator?
If you have inadvertently taken onboard the “younger is better” message, you have become infected with a toxic agent that will eventually rob you of joy, peace, and even health…whatever your age.
Grab that leech and throw it far away!
I recently spoke with a man who referred to himself as having entered “old age” even though he was barely 50. And he meant it. He was depressed, sick, and saw himself as slowly going more and more out into pasture in the coming years! That IS depressing, especially since he could have over 30 years left on this planet in which to boisterously give and receive all that God has. Believing this lie was robbing him of so much, as lies do.
So whatever your level: whether 1.6 or 2.8 or 4.3 or 7.9, embrace the unique strengths of this particular stage and live it to the fullest, for God and for yourself. It is His gift to you!
“Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward.” Ecclesiastes 5:18