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 who were over thirty and thinking they were so old.

Thirty!

Ancient.

Practically historical monuments.

Of course, that was a long time ago, back when thirty seemed like some distant country I would probably never have to visit.

Then something unexpected happened.

I arrived there.

And 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.

One year at a time.

I am getting younger.

I have already decided where I am going to stop: thirty years young.

And once I arrive there, I intend to remain there 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 enthusiastically agree.

At least verbally.

I suspect that somewhere inside they are quietly thinking:

Yes, yes, Jurate. You grow younger. I am going to grow older gracefully.

There is nothing wrong with growing older gracefully.

It is a perfectly respectable plan.

It just isn’t mine.

I prefer growing younger enthusiastically.

Now, obviously, I understand that calendars exist. Birth certificates exist. Biology exists. I am not suggesting that if I think hard enough, my passport will spontaneously rewrite itself.

But perhaps there is another question worth asking:

How much power should a number have over the way we think about ourselves?

At some point, society begins quietly handing us instructions.

At this age you should have accomplished this.

At that age you should stop doing that.

This is appropriate for someone your age.

That is no longer realistic.

Start slowing down.

Be sensible.

Act your age.

But what exactly does act your age mean?

Who wrote the rules?

And perhaps more importantly:

Did we ever agree to them?

Limiting beliefs rarely introduce themselves by saying:

Hello. I am a limiting belief, and I have come to make your life smaller.

They usually sound much more reasonable.

It’s probably too late.

I’m not talented enough.

I’m too young.

I’m too old.

I don’t have the right education.

I don’t know the right people.

People like me don’t do things like that.

I tried once and it didn’t work.

Eventually, we stop hearing these statements as beliefs.

They begin sounding like facts.

And that is where they become powerful.

There is a familiar saying:

Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you may discover that you were right.

Not because belief magically controls every circumstance.

It doesn’t.

We live in a physical world with real limitations, real responsibilities and sometimes very difficult circumstances.

But our beliefs influence what we attempt.

And what we never attempt.

They influence which doors we knock on, which opportunities we notice, which risks we take, which people we approach and how quickly we surrender when something becomes difficult.

Sometimes the greatest limitation is not the locked door.

It is deciding beforehand that the door will never open.

I sometimes wonder how many possibilities people have abandoned simply because somebody once told them:

“You can’t.”

Maybe it was a parent.

A teacher.

A spouse.

A boss.

A doctor.

A culture.

A tradition.

Or perhaps nobody actually said it.

Perhaps we simply absorbed the message from watching everyone around us.

And then, after enough years, we began repeating it to ourselves.

That may be the strangest part.

Eventually, we no longer need anyone else to limit us.

We become very efficient at doing it ourselves.

Of course, there is another side to this.

“Who said I can’t?” does not mean I can do absolutely anything.

I cannot jump from the roof and decide gravity is merely a limiting belief.

There is an important difference between rejecting unnecessary limitations and rejecting reality.

Wisdom probably lives somewhere between the two.

The challenge is learning to recognize which limitations are real—and which ones are simply inherited assumptions wearing very convincing costumes.

Maybe age is one of the easiest places to see this.

We cannot stop time.

But perhaps we can decide what time means.

We can remain curious.

We can learn something completely new.

We can fall in love with life again.

We can change careers.

Start businesses.

Write books.

Travel.

Dance.

Create.

Make ridiculous plans.

Make serious plans.

Make no plans whatsoever and surprise ourselves.

We can become more playful instead of less.

More interested instead of more resigned.

More alive instead of more cautious.

Perhaps youth is not entirely a number.

Perhaps some part of it is a 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.

So I have decided to keep asking the first one.

And when my next birthday comes, I will once again subtract a year.

My girlfriends are welcome to come with me.

I cannot guarantee they will.

But that’s fine.

They can grow older gracefully.

I have other plans.

After all—

who said I can’t?

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