Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney almost never engage in age-based self-deprecation.
They never make jokes about getting older, like so many people do.
Poet and Nobel Laureate George Oppen wrote, “I think that might have something to do with the almost ridiculously good time they’re having in their eighties. They play the double game to perfection: simultaneously aware of age and oblivious to it”
I love this so much.
I have never — not even once — used the word “old” or “older” or implied that I am “getting old” when describing myself. And I try like hell to ensure that I don’t slow down simply because the digits in my age represent a larger number than before. If anything, I try to do more as that age-related number increases.
Why?
Our brain is always listening to what we say in an effort to understand what it should do.
This is why positive self-talk and even simply smiling can be so good for us, even if we’re not feeling positive or happy. The brain reads these auditory signals and releases chemicals to enhance the feeling we are projecting, even if we’re not actually feeling them.
Saying you’re happy makes you happy.
Crazy but true. All scientifically proven.
Age-related comments may produce the same effects.
Start joking about being old or getting old or feeling old, and you’re brain will believe this to be true and may react accordingly.
People who complain about getting old might be getting old faster than necessary.
Saying you’re old makes you old, so avoid those statements at all costs.
Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Matthew Dicks may be onto something.
I’m 54, and I relentlessly tell my students that I have more energy than any of them, and most of them begrudgingly agree.
I believe it, so I say it, so I feel it.
Perhaps I feel it because I say it so often, while also relentlessly avoiding those ponderous, unoriginal, unproductive comments and predestrian jokes about getting older that always strike me more like flag of surrender rather than any bit of meaningful dialogue or amusement.
Mick, McCartney, and Matt — two world class musicians and a former flute, bassoon, and drum player who all agree that age-based self-deprecation should be avoided at all costs.
