‘Someone recently asked my age and before I knew it “28” popped out,’ my 38-year-old friend, Sal, said during my birthday celebrations. ‘It’s not like I missed one or two years; a whole decade escaped me.’
‘I genuinely have to think about it when someone asks my age,’ I said. ‘I just can’t believe I’m in my mid-30s. I’m nearing 40!’
‘But remember when you turned 30,’ Natasha said.
‘Yes, it feels like such a long time ago.’ I immediately felt better.
The fact that five years feels like a long time ago is a good thing, right? I have been taking advantage of new and unique experiences – which tend to offer more detailed and lasting memories… Admittedly newly required skills include learning to cycle (using back-pedal brakes, at least) and learning to cook. Unique experiences include checking out far-flung destinations (on holiday). However, evidence also shows that time slows during times of stress, too – these include having a very high temperature, feeling rejected and experiencing depression. This rings true when I reflect on the time when I was out of work… Our 30s can feel pressured, too – it’s the decade for taking stock and accepting the consequences of the decisions we made in our 20s when we thought we had plenty of time to learn from our mistakes. ‘My 30s was my toughest decade so far,’ my 50-something-year-old mum recently told me.
A study by the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics has revealed that people are happiest at 23 and 69 years old, but most regretful in their mid-50s. It revealed that those in their early 20s are hopeful about the future (true. I randomly signed up to a flight training course at 23 despite my poor sense of direction and failing the eye test – the FAA medical examiner let me cheat), but that satisfaction decreases until the 50s when it begins to rise again, according to Hannes Schwandt of Princeton University, who studied the data. ‘People in their 50s could learn a little from the elderly, who generally feel less regret. They should try not to be frustrated with their unmet expectations because they are probably not feeling much worse than their peers,’ he said. I don’t feel too frustrated that I’m not a pilot for BA so that’s good news then.
I guess the secret is to keep trying new experiences and learning new skills, from cooking classes to travelling, but not to be too tough on ourselves when we just want to spend a weekend doing absolutely nothing but let time stand still… ‘You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by,’ as Peter Pan’s creator James Matthew Barrie once said.
