No, being over 50 is not a deadzone
The modern era is the preserve of the younger generation; Gen-Xers have no place in this world.
Where does your mind settle when you read that line? Are you nodding, all the while holding back a tear swollen with the regrets of having not lived the life of your choice, of not achieving all you promised yourself?
If you’re nodding in agreement as you recall your youth when everyone over 50-years old seemed a greying remnant of a time you could not comprehend, or even wish to explore, then stop. Aging, in particular, aging gracefully has never been more accessible, or desirable.
This era we live in has delivered an unrivalled array of benefits for pretty much the whole of mankind, and anyone over the age of 50 has as many rewards to reap as the generations following ours.
Not convinced?
That’s fine; I’m here to point out some of the marvellous advantages and benefits we ‘elders’ have, and of which we have sown the seeds and are now reaping the very healthy rewards.
But what can we reasonably point to and say, “Yeah, I was part of the movement which helped drag society in a new direction?”
Time to look to the most obvious — technology.
1981 — the first desktop PC with a Microsoft Windows installation landed in the stores and with the Operating System came a technology many of us had not heard of: email!
Remember that? A simple piece of software capable of transmitting a message to a friend, family member, or colleague anyplace where there is a means to receive. In fact, the advent of email was predicted to destroy the postal services of the world (I’m writing this after returning from my local Post Office from where I posted a parcel to a cousin… the rumour mill was way out with that prediction).
Let’s delve a little further into the technology arena, after all there is so much more to explore.
Innovations in the way we bank are huge.
I remember as recently as the early 90s recieving a pay cheque on the last day of each month, then waiting for 7 days for the money to clear into my account. Compare those figures to the modern era, a time when payments are made and available to use in as little as 2 hours. Gen-X is, to a very large degree, responsible for the the technological advances that brought about the shift in the way banks handled and moved money from one point to another — many of the engineers who built the backend systems were born in the 70s; many of the minds that conceived the ideas were forged in the same decade.
Many of us were early adopters of FaceBook — anyone under the age of 50 was following in our tracks. Sure, those greying social media users may not have been huge in numbers, but they led the way and refused to be locked out by societal expectations. Likewise, many of the more recent additions to the glut of apps such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc, are used by people of our age.
We could go on and on, exploring how our generation accelerated technological advances and adoption of tech, but I think you get the point.
For me, the most amusing childhood memories of anyone over 50 were those of ‘grey’ people. They dressed like, well, old people. And they seemed so dour and miserable. Which I understand — they had lived through a World War, had served and witnessed the horrors of conflict, then returned home to tattered cities and towns that bore the scars.
Of course they looked grey and sceptical; many of them no doubt wondered when, and if, another, far more devastating war would erupt. They lived in a time when the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock shivered ever closer to Mutually Assure Destruction.
Whilst we have yet to rid the world of nuclear weapons we have controls to limit proliferation. They’re not perfect, but those mechanisms, and the threat of retaliation, have worked to ensure a semblance of peace and security.
And release from this existential angst has allowed us to blossom.
Gone are (most) of the fears shouldered by our parents and grandparents — the evaporation of our worries, to a degree, provides breathing space in which we can consider our personal health, wealth, and general outlook on life. We even dress in ways that make us feel comfortable rather than feeling we need to conform to some jaded ‘cultural hand-me-down’ from previous generations.
The constraints of talking about ‘taboo’ subjects are gone — many of those restrictions either broken down by Gen-X, or supported by us. For example, I remember older family members commenting about people who were “one of them, you know…” aka gay. In this century, for most people, those anarchic comments and words whispered behind hands-shielded mouths are dead and buried. We accept people for who they are, our inclusive thoughts and views now mainstream.
For many people these points are givens — the generations that followed us have taken many of the advances for granted, viewing themselves as the creators of the current world we live in. And I’m fine with that. Really, I am.
My life has taken many twists and turns: there has been tragedy, elation, success and failure. So far, I’ve done well — I am alive, have a family I adore, and a business that’s growing. And I’m over 50.
The gloom-filled deadzone of being Gen-X in the 2020s I imagined in my youth has failed to transpire. This one simple fact fills me with happiness.