Age Doesn’t Make Us Who We Are. Life Does.

Over the holidays, I was scrolling through a list of movies I’d recorded and decided to watch one, instead of tackling another list I’d made: my End-of-Year To Do list. Looking forward, those two hours seemed like an irresponsibly long time to spend essentially doing nothing. But when the movie ended, it seemed as though almost no time had passed at all.

Funny thing about Time: it’s as much about perception as it is about reality.

And so it goes for Age.

As younger people, many of us look at our parents and grandparents and imagine how they must feel as older adults—physically, intellectually, socially, cognitively, emotionally. Because they’ve always been older than us, we often fail to recognize that they were once our age, too—and full of the same feelings (including the questions and uncertainties) that we feel now. But what younger people may not realize is that, generally speaking, older adults don’t necessarily feel any differently than they did when they were younger.

Take World War II veterans, for example. Today, their average age is about 92. But inside the bodies of those 92-year-old men and women—admittedly, many of them now frail and perhaps even wheelchair-bound—remain the brave, determined, patriotic younger versions of themselves who courageously fought on the front lines of battlefields around the world.

The same goes for other older adults, too. Those who are lucky enough to celebrate their 40th, 50th, and 60th wedding anniversaries in their older years are the same people who once flirted and first fell in love during their younger ones. Grandparents and even great-grandparents now, they are the same folks who once tentatively held their own first newborn children decades ago—delirious with both joy and fear. While some may now go to bed slightly earlier than they used to, they remain the same people who once partied the night away with their friends, and—dare I say it—even “made out” on the dance floor.

You see, the secret no one tells us when we’re younger is that as we continue to age, we’re not necessarily going to feel any different at our core. At the age of 63, I am the same feisty, opinionated, creative, curious, passionate person I was when I received the “Most Outspoken” award my senior year of high school. A little wiser, mellower, judicious, and more tolerant than I was back then. But in my heart of hearts, I’m essentially the same person.

And that, based on the cursory research I’ve done with people my age, is the reality for most older adults. It’s the perception of older age—much of which is sadly based on ageist stereotypes—that people get so wrong. So it doesn’t matter whether we spend our time watching a holiday movie, writing an essay, or cleaning the house. Time marches on, regardless.

The key is understanding that age doesn’t make us who we are. Life does.