Heart and Mind

Age Blame

"He's, you know...only, like, 22 years old."

That was an excuse I heard recently about someone who has an inability to conduct himself professionally in an adult-like manner in a work setting. Maybe it wasn't even a full blown "excuse," but it was certainly meant as an "explanation." As if to say, "What can you expect? He's just a kid of 22."

I hate when people use that age thing to make sense of own bad decisions, inappropriate behavior, or less-than-intelligent approaches to life. Immaturity may play a role in all those things, but...

a) maturity needs to be assessed on a case by case basis; no generalizations should be made based on a specific age.

and

b) sometimes people just don't have their shit together, irrespective of how old they are.

Let's talk about those two points:

Maturity needs to be assessed on a case by case basis; no generalizations should be made based on a specific age.
Despite what you may be thinking, this isn't me stepping up on my "holier than thou" soap box. I'm not trying to act holier than anyone. It's just a plain fact. People like to talk, particularly (but not limited to) when they discuss themselves, about knuckleheaded things done in youth because the subject was "young and stupid."

Well, what was it? Did you do too much blow? Steal too much? Whatever the undesirable scenario was that you have come to learn isn't something you'd want to do anymore doesn't matter. You can't credit your older age for making you wiser. TRUE, you may have gotten older and gained wisdom and perspective—but to assign a numeric age to your problem doesn't hold water. It was your problem when you were 18. It wasn't naturally an issue because you were 18. The proof? The proof is in all the people who knew better at 18 not to make the same mistake. Some of them probably knew at 12. And some of them are older than you are now and still don't get it.

Again, this isn't about saying I've never made a mistake or not had my act together, nor is it to say that I am unforgiving of others. It's merely stating the fact that we all come from different backgrounds and have varying degrees of intelligence, common sense, and character. One man's 18 is another man's 12 is another man's 22 when determining when the lightbulb should go off for a specific situation.

So this idea of what is "age appropriate" doesn't hold a lot of water for me when we're talking about these kind of things. Because, what is age appropriate? That is a subjective assessment. In the example that started this blog entry out, 22 seemed way old, to me, to be lacking the ability to act like an adult.

The idea that you are "young and (therefore) stupid" is insulting to young people who aren't. If you leave a specific age out of the equation, it's less insulting, because you're not defining how young one needs to be to be naturally "stupid." But in our example above, it is insulting to every 22-year-old who wouldn't have conducted him- or herself in the same manner.

Sometimes people just don't have their shit together, irrespective of how old they are.
This is a closely related point. The fact is, people screw up at all different ages and for all different reasons. In my estimation, the people who screwed a lot of stuff up when they were "young and stupid" seem to be people who continue to screw things up when they are older. They just screw up different things and in different ways.

It's the old "you don't have to be old to be wise" concept. I can easily point out people I know who have tons more common sense than other people I know who are twice or thrice their age. If it were all age, every 55-year-old would be much more on the ball then every-35-year old. And I can walk these streets outside my office and point out 55-year-olds pushing a grocery cart filled with discarded soda cans they've picked up for nickels who clearly don't have more going on for themselves than anyone.

**whew**

Well...I'm jumping off the soap-box! My last few blog entries had been more cheeky, less angry--takes about Stevie's Wonder's shaving rituals or silliness about Daylight Savings time. I thought it was time to get a good rant in there so that I didn't get too soft! This blog is going to have problems, because people who don't know me will get confused about my tone. I tend to write with a toungue-in-cheek-look-at-how-quirky-this-is tone, and I also tend to write in a I'm-an-angry-young-man-who's-not-so-young tone. These approaches could never sit side by side to each other in the same published book. But anything goes on the blog, and that is going to get people angry at times. Like the tag on the right says, "A little of everything."

posted by Steve @ 2:00 PM