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Best age to be ….

by 43 Comments

What’s the best age to be?

Yesterday because you’ve still got tomorrow to look forward to.

(Can tell I’m not at work)

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Comments

  1. 32.not young and daft.hopefully seen and been places and had some life experiences.and fit and healthy enough to still do most things.still got lots of hair and can eat and drink anything without putting on weight.sigh!

  3. Hepworth came up with one of his theories in a recent podcast that the age everyone wanted to be was 17. I was a bit taken aback because I would have written off anything before mid 20s, but then I didn’t like being a kid and frankly wasn’t much good at being young.

    On reflection 16-18 is not that bad a shout – you have a bit more independence than before and you’re exploring the world, along with sex and booze and drugs when they all seem exciting because surely you’re the first generation who ever discovered them?

    I like @johnb ‘s suggestion of 32, but my 40s were the happiest decade of my life to date. Obviously individual choices will be massively influenced whatever major life events happened to you at that time, but early adulthood edging into early middle age sounds good to me.

  4. I’d probably say 17 but although there were laffs aplenty and I was as thin as a rake, there were very real life-hampering anxieties that I find just silly now. So I’m looking forward to my 70s. Life with a steady income without needing to work, hopefully.

  5. About 8 or 9. Old enough to have some awareness of what’s going on, and to have some appreciation of the finer things in life. Young enough that you have all these other ages still ahead.

    At the end of the day, if you go for your 30s you’re turning down another 20+ years of life that were right there on the table. I would love to do it all over again, even the crap bits.

  6. I’m increasingly of the view that the best way to be is a “brain in a jar”/uploaded mind as I would still get to do the things in life I enjoy – listen to music, chat with friends (everyone’s so busy this increasingly happens over WhatsApp etc), read, or catch the latest overhyped show – without the nuisance of the parts of life I’m tired of – getting dressed/undressed (seriously, I think, as a creature designed to live about 30 years, 50 years of putting on/taking off shoes has me at my breaking point), preparing food, cleaning up afterwards, right now steeling myself to attack the bloody garden… and then there’s all the aches and pains I have to look forward to in my remaining years..

    • It’s absolutely amazing how utterly opposite to my feeling this is! Physical corporeal humanity is the best thing I can imagine: having a body, being a body! All the best things in life are about having and being a body. If I were a brain in a jar I’d be begging someone to turn the power off.

      In answer to the OP, I really like being in my forties. Everything still works, but I’m a bit wiser. More mistrustful than ever of people who claim to have answers, including myself; more certain than ever that happiness is often found in mysteries.

      • Well yeah, football, swimming, dancing, a nice bath – it’s a lot to give up. But c’mon – work, ironing, sitting on the toilet, putting on socks, constantly cleaning, seeing yourself in the mirror, having to breathe in AND out…

  10. Like Freddy, early to mid 30s were great but I’d be happy to be the age I am now, 58, if I hadn’t noticeably slowed down and my back and knees were better., as I’m generally more content. I did wonder for a while if it was just me getting mentally less capable but an old friend and colleague, who is about 7 years younger than me, is also less sharp and he really was the sharpest knife in the box for a long while.

  11. Obvs different for mind and body. I find that (at least, so far) as one ages, one’s mind gets a clearer picture of who it is and exactly what it wants from its brief existence, but who wouldn’t want a 20-year-old body to do it in? Which is exactly why Freaky Friday was such an interesting documentary.

  15. I liked being the age when I had no responsibilities but I was aware of good things like music, art, cool tv. Cool things generally. The only trouble was school, exams, serious stuff like that. Now I have a job that is comfortable, I work with people I like. I have a routine that suits. A home life I am happy with. 60 is the best time. Being young was always compromised. Trying too hard to be liked. All that angst. God! I wouldn’t want to go through all that again.

  17. About 40 is good. Wise and still youngish

    Before you feel good but know not enough
    After you know more but physically you are shot.
    I’m 40+ now and it’s the long slow decline to death

    • Wow that’s a pessimistic view. 66 about to announce retirement and have a shit load of things I want to do -,just hoping the grim reaper ain’t anywhere near.

    • I went back to University in my mid-40s to do a part time Post Graduate Certificate to
      reinvigorate my mind and career. It was weird being a student alongside fellow students who could be my kids but it was a good decision.

      It worked on both counts.

      • I’m not sure we understand life – rather we impose a narrative on it that suits us, excluding the messy bits that it’s convenient (or necessary) to avoid.

        I’m one of the ones who’s happy at the age on at, because of I look back and think of all the things I could have done differently, I’d go mad. Too much choice is hell to me.

          • Thanks, Jim. On reflection, I’m not sure how wise those words are. All understanding can ever be is the narrative we put on it. We don’t have omniscience, just an opinion about the past that, if enough others agree with, becomes history.

            I think the one thing about going back with the knowledge I have that would really have an impact is meeting again all the people (family especially) who are no longer accessible through death, disease or distance. But they are all in here *taps head* – so I can go off and talk to them at any time if I want to.

  20. It would be nice to be young again, but with the knowledge of the world that I’ve gained. That isn’t possible so here and now will do for me because doing it again without knowledge I’d only make the same mistakes or others just as bad..
    As a 96 year-old holocaust survivor remarked in a clip I was watching earlier, “To wake up in the morning to another day is a blessing.” It applies to anyone, of any age, anywhere, really.

  21. 40s. Mine were great. Established at last in a job that I liked which paid for the good things in life. At ease and confident in myself, and probably fitter than I’d ever been.
    Turned 50 and bit by bit I lost the whole of my preceding generation and far too many of my own, and too much of me started to creak.

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