I'm almost 40. The aging process has certainly begun, and here's what I have to say about it.
Bodily health is important. Do everything you can to stay in shape. You don't have to have bulging muscles or a six-pack, but don't let yourself go. Some of it, of course, is out of your control. Your brain is a part of your body, so do what you can to take care of both.
Intelligence-wise, some people get smarter in their 30s, 40s, 50s, likely beyond that... and some people get dumber. I'm smarter than I was at 22, but an upward trajectory isn't a guarantee. You can actually predict which way people will go: the ones who buy into corporate and accept the notion of an employer having authority are the ones who turn dumb as rocks. If you sit in meetings with people who talk about "synergizing" "at the end of the day" after a "drill down session" where we'll "boil the ocean" and "jump on" calls, you become one of them. If you spend 10 years doing work with no career value, you lose your skills. The ones who never bought in are the ones who keep getting smarter.
Which explains what ageism is really about. Bosses know that not everyone turns into an idiot in middle age. Plenty of us don't. However, the people who buy into corporate do get dumber, and the ones who preserve or improve their intelligence and skills in middle age are exactly the anti-authoritarian types who don't make the best subordinates. With a 20-year-old, you don't know which way he's going to go, and it'll be a decade from now; with someone like me in his late 30s, you know which they've gone.
Bodily health is important. Do everything you can to stay in shape. You don't have to have bulging muscles or a six-pack, but don't let yourself go. Some of it, of course, is out of your control. Your brain is a part of your body, so do what you can to take care of both.
Intelligence-wise, some people get smarter in their 30s, 40s, 50s, likely beyond that... and some people get dumber. I'm smarter than I was at 22, but an upward trajectory isn't a guarantee. You can actually predict which way people will go: the ones who buy into corporate and accept the notion of an employer having authority are the ones who turn dumb as rocks. If you sit in meetings with people who talk about "synergizing" "at the end of the day" after a "drill down session" where we'll "boil the ocean" and "jump on" calls, you become one of them. If you spend 10 years doing work with no career value, you lose your skills. The ones who never bought in are the ones who keep getting smarter.
Which explains what ageism is really about. Bosses know that not everyone turns into an idiot in middle age. Plenty of us don't. However, the people who buy into corporate do get dumber, and the ones who preserve or improve their intelligence and skills in middle age are exactly the anti-authoritarian types who don't make the best subordinates. With a 20-year-old, you don't know which way he's going to go, and it'll be a decade from now; with someone like me in his late 30s, you know which they've gone.