It's Time to Eliminate Age

Can life be lived more fully because no one knows your age? I believe so. And so did those people in life who did not let age discrimination limit their dreams either by ignoring the painful insults or by simply refusing to tell their real…age.

“NEVER TOO OLD TO HAVE FUN.” This is the headline on the newspaper USA TODAY on August 25 of the year 2000. The newspaper is referring to John Glenn who circled the earth at AGE seventy-seven, and adds the fact that COACHES find the FOUNTAIN of YOUTH in college football achievements.

Again, in USA TODAY in October 2000, there was a story about a lady hunter in her ninety-ninth year. “A great-grandmother known far and wide as ‘Mabel the Mighty’ takes to the woods for yet another dear hunt.”¹

These are typical examples of people who have decided not to let age, the number, kill their dreams. They are living what they feel in their hearts, “staying young,” and refusing to let the green-eyed monster remind them that they are of a certain number and should act their age.

Ageism is a state of mind that can ruin a life. How can we possibly apply growth the same way to each person? Since each being is unique physically, emotionally, and intellectually, the development takes place differently in each person. This is very well defined in Hurlock’s Developmental Psychology: “Although all individuals follow a definite and predictable pattern of development, each individual has his own distinct style of doing so. Some develop in a smooth, gradual, step-by-step fashion, while others move in spurts.”²

Yes, it is true that similar physical growth symptoms appear in individuals around a certain phase of time, for example, puberty or menopause. But an individual is not only physical but also has emotions, an intellect, and a soul. Many people who give signs of total physical growth can be deficient at the intellectual level. And yet others who haven’t reached their total physical development at a given age may have extended abilities at the intelligence level.

I believe that when we stereotype people by age, we fail to allow the development of each individual’s full potential.