I’ve recently watched a lot of TV where the primary characters are young women. The first show was Season 4 of the Crown and the second was the Queen’s Gambit (both are very, very good).
One thing that struck me more than the amazing performances by the actresses that played Princess Diana and Beth Harmon was how young they are throughout the two shows.
Princess Diana was a lot younger than I thought she was. Every photo I’ve seen of her I thought she was older, which is why I was so shocked while watching episode 3 to discover that she got engaged at 19 and got married to Prince Charles at 20.
Beth’s age in the Queens Gambit is ambiguous, but it chronicles from her childhood to late teenage years, except while watching it you forget this. With all that she goes through on the show before the age of 20 I started to think she was older. It wasn't until I was thinking back to the first episode I remembered how young she really is throughout the show.
And as a result of watching both of these shows focused around the journey's of two young women I've started thinking a lot about youth and our societal obsession with being young.
As a society we’re obsessed with youth. Young actors and actresses are constantly in the media. Coming of age stories telling how young people go through their adolescence to adulthood is its own film and TV genre. Musicians have come up with countless lyrics about being young and stupid and wanting to stay this way forever.
We’re fed narratives that the years when we're considered young are the best years of our lives. That in our 20's life is messy but fun and interesting and entertaining and we can do anything we want without accountability or consequences.
But we're also told that this is fleeting, it doesn't last forever. That one day you turn 30 and it all expires. Suddenly, you have to become a real "adult". That everything starts to become more difficult and complicated. That our looks, our energy and our ability to enjoy life as we used to fades away.
And personally I think that’s bullsh**t
The obsession of being young and fear of getting old has never made any sense to me. Human beings have an average lifespan of 79 years. That's 79 years to have fun, make mistakes, take risks, enjoy rewards, have soaring highs and painful lows. But for some reason we're told once we reach a certain age this becomes untenable. That after a certain age you need to settle down and in that process somehow start enjoying life less.
I think it comes from this idea of what our lives are supposed to look like. That your 20’s are for being a bit crazy and reckless and immature and you move into your 30's and you have to settle down, get a house, get a partner and start having children.
But that's not universally true.
I think one thing everyone's learned this year is that life never goes as planned. And that the plan that you may think you need to follow is actually based on arbitrary expectations set 50 odd years ago.
We all have the freedom to move through life at our own pace, doing or not doing whatever works best for us. And in doing so we all get to enjoy all that life has to offer not just the second decade of it.
There doesn't need to be this pressure that your 20's are your best decade and that you have to be enjoying yourself then because after that you don't have much time left to enjoy anything.
It's a pressure that doesn't make much sense, especially as your 20’s are touted as being both the decade to enjoy yourself but also figure out who you are.
When has a journey of self-discovery ever been fun, enjoyable or easy? And why do we think self-discovery starts at 21 and ends at 29?
We change as people constantly, our lives are a constant cycle of self-discovery and re-discovery, from 18 to 60.
Youth isn’t fleeting and aging shouldn't be something that's feared but instead something that's exciting. Our best years are hopefully dotted along decades of life and not confined to the age dates of 21 to 29.
And maybe the feeling of being young will go eventually but the fun, excitement and self-discovery characteristic of the rollercoaster that life is I hope never ends.