We all get older, all the time. Nobody is going backwards in time, nor staying still. What can we do about? Most people seem to be all right with the normality of time passing and that the time is the only thing that affects all. Certainly there are people who try their most to keep young or at least to look younger. Who\’s to say what is right and wrong reaction for the issue, but there have been real advances made in the medical field that help us humans to live longer.
Why is old such a bad thing then? Why isn’t that the wisdom that comes with age in professional life, still not harnessed as a real advance? There was a news article, just recently, that showed a man in his fifties being hired after a long period of unemployment. Even the man in question was surprised, as he was told before that he was too old to do the jobs he applied. Now there are news articles saying that from the age of forty you’re already considered as perhaps too old for learning a job.
The companies hiring people have so many good applicants, that they can just pick and choose who to hire and who not to hire in arbitrary basis. And if the person hired doesn’t want to do their job with for example pay cuts or changed job descriptions, the employee can just say: “Hey, you’re welcomed to leave. There are others lining up to take your place.”
This has lead to children being pushed, in younger and younger age to be professional inclined and to think about the future with pre-schools and even their hobbies and pastime activities. Children need to be free when they are still children, and not being pushed in to “play dates” with activities planned and supervised by adults. It shouldn’t the “Who are the parents of that kid?” nor “Who goes to the same school as my kid?”
After this comes the parents expectations. The child has to do well, because the parents used so much money and “pulled so many strings” and asked all sorts of favors, to get to the best schools – and eventually to a training position to a good company. Training positions, that in turn are unpaid and only taken because of the possibility of getting in to a company.
But the reality is that the person is not automatically better if he/she is younger. In fact quite the opposite. The person needs to get some experience in real situations, so that he/she will have the knowledge on how to behave when the situation is real and there are real people and real money involved. These are some of the things that are easily missed in the conversation around age, in this day and age – pun intended.
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