On being old but not feeling old and vice versa...

"It's a shame that youth is wasted on the young."

- George Bernard Shaw

(probably1)

Have you ever absentmindedly caught a glimpse of your reflection and found you look older than you remember? I have. I managed to do that this very evening, in fact, on the bus home from work. I looked like someone who, in my youth, I would have called an adult.

I don’t feel old, though. At least, I don't think I do. I seldom feel grown-up. I rarely feel like a capable, well-adjusted adult. I do feel like I’ve experienced a lot more of the world than the vast majority of people due, in no small part, to my privileged upbringing and (useful) job. But I do not feel ‘old’.

I wonder if I’ll feel old when I’m 41?

Quick poll - if you’re 41 (or thereabouts), do you feel old?

I’m not saying I necessarily regard everyone aged 41-and-up as ‘old’, but I’d be interested to know if you yourself do.

There is, of course, that fun saying ‘You’re only as old as you feel’. But I've always found I get stuck at the first hurdle when I start to wonder how old I feel. By what criteria can we properly judge something that is so very subjective?

I asked a colleague of mine this afternoon if he felt old and he immediately said, “yes”. (He is the same age as me.) He then took a moment to have a think about it and said, “not necessarily old per se, but ‘less fun’”. (He then rattled off some analogy about ducks being in a row or something. I don’t know. I’d never heard it before.) But thinking about this, I couldn't help but feel it was rather unfair to the elderly. Surely becoming less fun is not a criteria of being old?

There's another saying that springs to mind - 'You don't stop having fun because you grow old, you grow old because you stop having fun.' And another one that says 'Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional'. We could go on long enough to fill a house with embroidered cushions. 

It does make me wonder - is the sort of fun one has doing crossword puzzles the same as the sort of fun one has playing duck, duck, goose? Is becoming more mature in the way you have fun the same as becoming old? I think before I write my next thesis on this website, it might be best to stop and just admit that the criteria are not objectively measurable and the whole thing is just slightly frustrating to think about.

I remember when I was about 15 trying to imagine what I’d feel like when I was 25 and finding it almost impossible. I think that this may have been because I had not yet experienced being in a workforce, or having a degree, or being able to drive a car. Now that I have those experiences under my belt, though, I still find it difficult to imagine how it will be any different in 10… 20… 25 years’ time. What could possibly change from here? 

Will I just get tired quicker?

I don't know folks, but if getting more tired is all there is, I hope I have not discovered my criteria.

1 https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/09/07/young/

On Mugs...

"World's okayest employee"
- Probably at least one mug in every office in the country

I’ve been having a little problem recently at work.

It concerns mug ownership.

You can probably spot the issue already, but I’m going to ramble my way through an explanation regardless because it’s my blog and I can write what I damn well please.

In my office we have a large number of free, branded, company-supplied mugs. They are easily accessible, always clean, and number roughly twice as many as the number of workers we actually have in the office. We also have a much smaller number of personal mugs that have been brought in by individuals to be used, one would reasonably presume, by the individuals to whom they belong. In essence, my office is the proverbial land of mugs and honey - a land where one is given the power to choose their own destiny when it comes to mugs. If they are content to use an office-supplied mug, they may, but if they would prefer to pay for and use their own, this is absolutely 100% fine too. It is, ostensibly, a mug-based utopia.

Having weighed my options carefully in the above regard, I recently decided to take advantage of the generous company policy and purchase myself a lovely, large, purple mug. I chose a lovely, large, purple mug for a number of reasons, but mostly so that it would be easily identifiable in the otherwise red-and-white mug-sea occupying the kitchen cupboards.

I would like to pause here to make it clear that I am not a petty person by nature. Being an elder sibling, I learnt at a very young age that sharing is caring, and was forced to make Compromise the foundation stone on which I laid my library of language and social skills(1). But even I fail to see, in a situation where the necessity to share is not present, and where, in fact, the supply equals twice that of the demand, any reason not to assume that if I were to add my own mug to the collection, I would have the exclusive use of my mug.

Let’s imagine the same scenario, for example, with an umbrella. Say your company supplied umbrellas for inclement weather, but they were all grey and black and depressing, so you decided, in spite of the free ones being offered, that you would bring in your own bright, yellow umbrella. Say that a colleague(2), in being given the choice in the office to now use the company-supplied umbrella, or a yellow umbrella that did not belong to them OR the company they worked for, decided to take your yellow umbrella out with them meaning that you would not be able to use it yourself. How does that make you feel? Because it makes me a little bit uncomfortable. As there is no interaction between yourself and the colleague, it's, in essence, stealing.

Now both you and I know this is not a new phenomenon in the shared history of human experience - in fact, it’s become somewhat of a cliche, especially in office-based sitcoms. Further, I'm more than willing to admit that using someone else's mug is not the most horrific of crimes. The thing is, though, knowing the office-based sitcoms and cliches attached, I do feel a bit smug in saying I kind-of-sort-of preempted the situation that followed...

You see, when I bought my lovely, large, purple mug, I made sure to also have it branded in big, bold letters, with the title of my podcast. So when I say that for the last two weeks I have had the joy of using it only once, I can rest easy in the knowledge that instead of sitting on my desk(3), it has been making the rounds in the office, providing free advertising.

(The only complaint I have with all of this is that the company-supplied free mugs are slightly smaller than my mug, and it would be nice to have access to a larger volume of tea now and then.)

(1) It was either that or deal with my younger sister sulking for a week.
(2) Who, let’s face it, probably isn’t even an acquaintance
(3) Which is in a corner and arguably the one area of the office where the advertising is pretty much useless