Perspectives for Defining Individual’s Age
There are many different ways of looking at age. For the discussion this week, you should take some time to think about your own age and what it says about you. How old are you in your mental outlook on life? Physically? Chronologically?
Also, take some time to look outside yourself and observe others around you. How old are your parents in each of these categories? Your grandparents? What information are you using as a baseline for assigning these ages?
The age of an individual can be defined from different perspectives which include their mental, physical, and chronological outlook. While the date of birth of an individual according to the calendar tells one’s chronological age, the accurate definition of one’s individuality may be different. Physical age is defined as the body fitness of an individual while chronological age is the number of years that a person has lived on the earth. Mental age is measured by an IQ test to measure one’s level of thinking capacity. A person’s age is of great importance and can be perceived in various perceptions. In our modern society, the dates of birth are highly valued as they are used to count and determine one’s age. This means that one’s age is calculated based on the number of days they have lived on earth since their dates of birth, which constitutes to chronological age. . In this essay, I will focus on my age as an individual from the above three perspectives. I will also observe the ages of my parent’s age in each category as well as my grandparents.
Personally, my age seems to contradict when perceived from physical and chronological ages, although my mental age judges me leniently. In other words, my physical, and chronological ages seem to differ from the way people judge my age. For instance, I have lived for 23 years which defines my chronological age (Kenny et al., 2016). Nonetheless, when interacting with my friends, I tend to doubt whether my date of birth was correctly recorded because some think that I am too mature to be 23 years based on my behaviors. This may be because of some small issues such as the love for social activities which most of my age mates are deeply involved in, while as for me, I find them boring and hence keep off from them (Kenny et al., 2016). My body size also contradicts my physical age. While most of my age mates have their bodies defining their physical age-appropriately, mine does the opposite. I am slim and my physical body would lead one into thinking that I am a form one student while I am in college. I have an IQ of 100 which means that my mental age is fit – not low and not high.
I have also observed the age of my parents in my quest to determine the differences in individualities that come along differences in ages. For instance, the chronological age of my mother is fifty years while my father is fifty-seven. However, from the look, one would think that my mother is at her late thirties while my father at early forties. They seem younger than their actual ages. While my father’s IQ is 98, my mother’s is 100 which provides a basis for their mental ages. As I tried calculating my grandparents’ ages, I could not get the correct number of years they have lived because they are much advanced in years and not able to state their dates of births (Kotter-Grühn et al., 2016). However, from their physical appearance, they are both over 100 years. The inability to get the right number of years they have makes it difficult to assess their physical and mental health.
One’s age is of great importance as it provides some guidelines on what someone should strive to achieve by what age. The age also helps to eliminate engaging in some activities which are assumed unnecessary at certain ages and get involved in those that are valuable at their ages.
References
Kenny, G. P., Groeller, H., McGinn, R., & Flouris, A. D. (2016). Age, human performance, and
physical employment standards. Applied physiology, nutrition, and metabolism, 41(6), S92-S107.
Kotter-Grühn, D., Kornadt, A. E., & Stephan, Y. (2016). Looking beyond chronological age:
Current knowledge and future directions in the study of subjective age. Gerontology, 62(1), 86-93.
