Oscar Wilde once wrote:

“One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”

I have always appreciated Oscar Wilde, especially on birthdays.

When I was a teenager, I remember looking at people over thirty and thinking they were so old. Thirty seemed almost ancient, practically a historical monument.

Then something unexpected happened.

I arrived there.

And, much to my surprise, my thirtieth year turned out to be one of the happiest and most exciting periods of my life. So eventually I made a decision: why keep counting in the wrong direction?

Now, on every birthday, instead of adding another year, I subtract one. I am getting younger, one year at a time, and I have already decided where I intend to stop: thirty years young. Once I arrive there, I plan to remain indefinitely.

Who said I can’t?

Occasionally I invite my girlfriends to join me. “Let’s make a promise,” I tell them. “From now on, we are going to grow younger together.” They usually agree enthusiastically, although I suspect that somewhere inside they are thinking, Yes, yes, Jurate. You grow younger. I am going to grow older gracefully.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with growing older gracefully. It is a perfectly respectable plan.

It simply is not mine.

I prefer growing younger enthusiastically.

Of course, I know that calendars, birth certificates and biology exist, and I am not suggesting that positive thinking will persuade my passport to rewrite itself. But perhaps there is another question worth asking: how much power should a number have over the way we think about ourselves and what we believe is still possible?

At some point, society begins quietly handing us instructions: by this age you should have accomplished certain things, at that age you should stop doing others, this is appropriate for someone your age, that is no longer realistic, slow down, be sensible, act your age.

But what exactly does act your age mean, who wrote those rules, and did we ever actually agree to them?

Limiting beliefs rarely introduce themselves by announcing that they have come to make our lives smaller. They sound much more reasonable: It is probably too late. I am too young. I am too old. I do not have the right education. I do not know the right people. People like me do not do things like that.

After hearing these ideas often enough, we stop recognizing them as beliefs and begin treating them as facts.

That is when they become powerful.

Belief does not magically remove every real limitation, and there is obviously a difference between challenging an unnecessary assumption and ignoring reality. I cannot jump from a roof and decide that gravity is merely a limiting belief. But our beliefs do influence what we attempt, which opportunities we notice, which doors we knock on, how quickly we give up, and sometimes whether we try at all.

I often wonder how many possibilities people have abandoned because somebody once told them, “You can’t.” Perhaps it was a parent, teacher, spouse, boss, culture or tradition, or perhaps nobody said it directly, and we simply absorbed the message from the world around us. Eventually, the strangest thing happens: we no longer need anyone else to limit us, because we become quite efficient at doing it ourselves.

Age may be one of the easiest places to see this. We cannot stop time, but perhaps we can decide what time means. We can remain curious, learn something completely new, change direction, write a book, start a business, travel, dance, create, make ridiculous plans, make serious plans, or simply surprise ourselves.

Perhaps youth is not entirely a number. Perhaps some part of it is our relationship with possibility.

A child looks at the world and asks:

What can I do?

Somewhere along the way, adults begin asking:

What am I still allowed to do?

Those are very different questions.

I have decided to keep asking the first one.

So when my next birthday arrives, I will once again subtract a year. My girlfriends are welcome to come with me, although I cannot guarantee that they will.

They can grow older gracefully.

I have other plans.

After all—

who said I can’t?

— J.B. Gattini
Founder & Editor
Enlightenment Media News