Age: The Factor We Can't Escape

As I sat, reminiscing on opportunities missed in life and how limited opportunities can be, I realised what we've all known, and that is, time moves. It waits for no one. You're either moving with it or it moves and leaves you having to catch up for lost time. You know what else hit me hard? By virtue of the continuous movement of time, our lives move as well.

I'm talking about one factor of our lives; that's our ages. Funny how it is that you don't need to cooperate with time before you grow in age. Just as much as we are alive and living every day, year in and year out, whether purposefully or uselessly, our ages don't stop moving or growing. And in my thoughts, it is a reality, a factor of life we can't escape.

There is this well-known riddle among my peers while we were still children and growing up. It goes like “what goes up and doesn't come down?” For some reason, we all knew the riddle and the answer alike. We would all shout the answer: age. Yes, age it is. Did we look at the implications? Not at all. We all used the riddle but we never cared to understand the implications of it.

Today, it's clear to me and virtually everyone who would give themselves to critical thinking, and perhaps a concern for the future. Moments of thought led me to realise how time is fleeting and how by implication of growth in our ages, we get stripped automatically of some opportunities. There are several opportunities in life I did apply for; trainings, courses, skills and what have you.

If you've been involved with many opportunities too, you'll understand that there's an age range that when reached it leaves one out of the equation. That's the reality. The fact that we can wallow in pleasures and time-wasting activities, feeling there's still time available is sad. Whereas, the time that seems to be available as one might see it continues to move, giving no concern or care about us.

I guess the point is, time is of the essence. And as much as it looks available and plentiful, a time will always come when the quantity will be defined by the quality of our current lives. So, why not I do well to apply for those opportunities, be it skills, courses, internships, webinar sessions and every one of them that I can get my hands on? Certainly, a time will come when my age range won't cooperate with the available opportunities, though then the need could be there.

For me, it is one of the advice I give those close to me, especially the younger ones; those still coming up. Sometimes, what it could take to do it right is first the necessary and timely information, and then the opportunity presented. There's this common statement, and it goes like “luck is when opportunity meets preparedness.” That preparedness could be the right and necessary information.

Well, we can escape from some things and from the repercussions of some of our actions. But you know what we can't escape? The factor of our age. As the riddle goes, which shows that age is what goes up and doesn't come down, so do the opportunities that could come with an age range until we grow past the ages, hence the opportunity scale.

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Images are mine.

Thank you for reading through!