Inner age: why do we care?

Numerous tests on the Internet promise to help us find out our inner age. In a world where recent university graduates run large corporations, and older people hitchhike and sit down at the university desk at 90, we simply lack objective criteria to understand where we are in our lives at the moment.

Are we being mature enough? Are we still too behind the times? Let’s try to figure out what we really want to understand about ourselves when we try to determine our “non-passport”, inner age.

Age is our feelings

The concept of “age” in the most general sense refers to the number of years that have passed since our birth. But how to interpret this number – everyone decides for himself. True, there is something to build on. For example, your own feelings. When a person grows up, changes occur in his body.

As we grow, we learn to control our body, to understand and accept our feelings. Youth appears as a time of change, a time of active knowledge of oneself and the world. All the colors around seem bright, emotions overwhelm, and often even confuse. Then, around the age of 25, growth slows down. We are aware of the limits of our capabilities, we learn to be careful, to take care of ourselves.

Maturity is coming. Next comes the aging process. The effect of them, of course, does not appear immediately. But gradually, over the years, taste buds and vision weaken, the metabolism in the body slows down, muscle mass decreases, and the likelihood of chronic diseases increases significantly. The timing and speed of development of these potential changes in our body depends on lifestyle, environment and genetics.

But here’s the paradox – our inner sense of age does not always correlate with the number of years lived and even physical condition. Someone, like Onegin, is already fed up with life by the age of 25, becomes a grumpy pessimist and hypochondriac. And someone, having exchanged the eighth decade, still looks at the world with the eyes of a child. The results of a recent study by the MacArthur Foundation indicate that a large part of the older generation does not link their age and the state of their body.¹.

Age is a measure of life

Another approach is set by society. A wedding, the birth of a first child, a term of study at a university – all these events show a change in our status, a transition from one stage of life to another. It is no coincidence that in our society for a long time there have been traditions of celebrating important dates associated with important stages of life. Anthropologists consider these traditions the heirs of the primitive “rites of passage” – ceremonies that introduced a person into a new life, drew a line between the old and the new life.

But in the modern world there is no such rigid hierarchy as in primitive tribes. Therefore, it becomes difficult to determine when a person grows up, moves from youth to maturity. Age limits are moving. For example, in 2012, WHO proposed the following age scheme: youth – from 25 to 44 years old, maturity – from 44 to 60 years old, old age – from 60 to 75 years old, old age – from 75 to 90 years and more. And back in 2005, the majority of respondents believed that old age begins at 50.².

First of all, our idea of ​​how we should behave is connected with the concept of age. Which of our actions will be accepted by society, and which ones will be regarded as inappropriate. But if the usual role models of a “respectable businessman”, “wise father”, “caring grandmother” become a thing of the past, together with them we lose the anchor that tied our behavior to a certain age.

Age is a search for answers to questions

Another approach to determining the boundaries of one’s age was proposed in the 60s by the American psychologist Eric Erickson. He believed that the transition of a person from one age period to another is determined by the ability to overcome personal crises, which are caused by a discrepancy between expectations and reality.

For example, in early childhood, a child understands that others do not always behave the way he wants it to. There is a crisis of confidence. If the child manages to overcome it, he successfully builds his relations with the world and accepts for himself new life attitudes – “virtues”. If the child does not find a positive way out of the crisis, he may lose the ability to trust others, become withdrawn and suspicious.

Every age has its pitfalls. Overcoming them, we again find meaning in life. And then it becomes important for us not only to stay on one mark we like, but to realize the value of a new stage in our lives. “When a person grows up, he inevitably faces challenges to his “I,” says developmental psychologist Galina Burmenskaya. “Our sense of age, our inner age is, first of all, an indicator of what problems are most important for us now, in what we see the meaning of our life at this very moment.”

^1. Published on the Foundation’s website, agingsocietynetwork.org

^2. According to surveys on the official website of the World Health Organization, who.int