My birthday was a few days ago, and even though I’m only 23, I’m feeling old. Having to schedule time off work to deal with a refinance probably contributes to that. Rather than trying to look at things positively (i.e., “You’re 23 and have to worry about your mortgage rate, not making rent or buying food or getting killed in Sadr City”), I’d rather harp on those who burned out rather than fading away.
For example:
When Sid Vicious was my age, he’d been dead for two years.
When Alexander was my age, he had conqurored Macedon. And put down rebellions in Athens and Thebes. Twice.
I forget who said it, maybe Art Buchwald, but the main problem with growing older is that it’s harder and harder each year to find famous people who didn’t amount to anything at your age.
When Andrew Lloyd Webber was your age, he had written Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and was working on Jesus Christ Superstar. He turns 59 next month.
When Muhammad Ali was my age, he retired as three-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world, with 56 wins, 3 losses, 37 knockouts, and an Olympic gold medal.
I hate you. You’re 23, and have a mortgage in SoCal. I’m 32, and haven’t been able to buy a place in the Bay Area.
I always say I get an age correction when comparing myself to historical figures- people didn’t live as long then, so I get more time to accomplish stuff.
Olympic athletes are the ones who first made me feel this way, too. I realized when I was a teenager that I was too old to ever be one, even if I wanted to.
This year, I’m freaking out over the fact that I’m 2[sup]5[/sup]. I need another bit to express my age. Yes, I know that I am a big geek…
Another good thing to do when you’re feeling old- calculate your age in Mars years (1 Mars year = 687 Earth days). I feel somewhat better about having accomplished nothing with my life so far when I think that I’m only 17 Mars years old…
My dad likes to tell me that when he was my age (21) he was married, had a kid, a full-time job, and a house. Well hey you lost the house and the marriage in the divorce so there!
When my father was my age, he had moved to a country thousands of miles from his birthplace, found a steady job, and settled down with a wife, a house and a kid.
I’ve got a book around here which lists achievements by people up to and beyond 100. Damned if I know where it is right now …
Can’t really compare myself to what my ancestors would be doing at my age. I’m self-employed, as my father was, but as I haven’t gone down the have-a-family road things are really too different for comparisons.
When my grandmother was 43 (my age) it was 1935, still the Depression in many respects, and she was bringing up three kids and a teenager in the outskirts of London. She’d been (briefly) a student teacher, and had operated a horse-and-cart milk run. Four years later, she’s be an ARP warden during the Blitz, and twelve years after that she was to cross the Atlantic by ship and the continental US alone by train.
When my mum was 43, it was 1970. She’d travelled to California, crossing the continental US twice before 1955, journeyed from England to NZ with her mother and two sons by the age of 31, and added to the natural-born Kiwi population by having me at age 36. She’d operated a dairy (a convenience store) briefly, then set-to in raising a family after purchasing a home (where I still live).
