Lately I have been recalling about a time when I was in my late 30s at choir practice, and a woman in her early 40s made some offhanded negative comment about me being too young, which I viewed within the context of various negative comments over the years where I was put down for being “too young.” I recall thinking at the time, what is the “sweet spot” where you’re not too young nor too old? In more recent years I’ve come to conclude that there is no sweet spot, because people are always looking for ways to put others down. But the reality is that we have many gifted young people who have much to offer in intelligence, and we have many older folks who have much to contribute with the wisdom they have garnered over their decades of life.

People are often too quick to judge others based on outward appearances. It is estimated that as many as 3.3 million of our children in the U.S. are gifted, more intelligent than a high percentage of adults who outnumber them in years. On the other end of the spectrum, for five years I was blessed to work with many older adults in nursing homes and assisted living environments, and from them I learned that decrepit bodies is not an indicator of mental competence—there are many people with failing bodies who still maintain their mental faculties and still have much to contribute to our society.

Age is not an indicator of mental competence. Doctors nowadays speak of “biological age” as contrasted with “chronological age”—chronological age is how old you are in years; whereas biological age takes into account the individualism of the aging process, which is not the same for everyone.

Bottom line—people of all ages have much to contribute to society. So, instead of being so quick to put others down, we should instead look for ways to value each member of our society, regardless of age.

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