Stop whatever you are doing right now and imagine, just for a moment, the following scene.
It is an ordinary Thursday.
The middle of the day.
You still have quite a lot to get through before the day is over. You already have plans for the weekend and, somewhere in the back of your mind, you are thinking about a well-deserved holiday.
Then your phone rings.
Unknown number.
You answer.
“We are calling from the local council, from the civil registration office, and we have a message for you.”
The person on the other end confirms your name.
“Are you Mr G. X., born on 21 April 1971 in X?”
“Yes…”
“Are you feeling well?”
What on earth is this? you think, already irritated and ready to end the call.
The voice continues.
“According to our records — and believe me, the entire team has checked and rechecked the information — we have discovered your original birth certificate.”
You say nothing.
“And according to this document, you were actually born on 20 April 1891.”
Silence.
For a second, it sounds completely absurd.
A mistake.
A scam.
A very bad joke.
But the voice continues, and now you are barely listening. You only catch fragments.
“…after extensive checks with the registry…”
“…we have the honour…”
“…on behalf of the council…”
“…the oldest living resident…”
“…a council team…”
“…further details…”
“…a visit…”
At some point, you look at the clock on your phone and realise that the conversation has lasted more than thirty minutes.
And now your mind is trying desperately to decide whether you have just been the victim of an elaborate prank or whether—
Wait.
Am I actually 135 years old?
But I feel young.
What does this even mean?
And suddenly something very strange happens.
You feel a kind of excitement.
Mixed with doubt.
Fear.
Confusion.
Maybe even amusement.
Because you have absolutely no reference point for what being 135 years old is supposed to feel like.
Yesterday you might have cycled 200 kilometres.
Last week you worked ten-hour days.
Three days ago you spent the weekend almost completely inactive after a spectacular night out with friends and an equally spectacular hangover.
So what exactly is 135 supposed to feel like?
Now ask yourself something
You may think I have taken this story ridiculously far.
Perhaps I have.
But stay with me.
Because there is something interesting hidden inside it.
What you repeatedly tell yourself becomes part of the reality through which you interpret your life.
Not reality in the magical sense that thinking something automatically makes it objectively true.
Reality in the psychological sense.
The meaning you give something affects what you notice, what you attempt, what you avoid, what you expect and, eventually, how you behave.
Research on how we perceive ageing suggests that the way we think about age can influence what we expect from ourselves, how we behave, and how we experience this part of life.
Your current health.
Your level of fitness.
Your relationships and the quality of those relationships.
Your finances.
The goals you achieved and turned into victories.
The failures that may have hurt you for years.
How you interpret and respond to all of these is influenced, in part, by a network of standards, expectations and beliefs that we set consciously or unconsciously.
Some are useful.
Some were useful once and are no longer.
Some were never really ours to begin with.
We simply inherited them.
From family.
From culture.
From fear.
From experience.
From “people say…”
From “this is how things are done…”
From “at my age…”
From “someone like me cannot…”
And whenever we leave the autopilot running without questioning any of these settings, sometimes it feels less as though we are living our life and more as though life is simply happening to us.
So let us go back to our 135-year-old man
How do you think you would feel if, tomorrow, somebody convinced you beyond reasonable doubt that you were actually 135?
Would your body suddenly change?
Would your personality disappear?
Would you wake up the next morning unable to climb the stairs?
Would you immediately stop making plans?
Would your curiosity vanish?
Would you lose the desire to travel, laugh, fall in love, learn something new, eat your favourite dessert or buy the bicycle you had been thinking about for months?
Probably not.
Because somewhere inside you, the child you once were is still there.
The child whose eyes light up when their favourite dessert appears on the table.
The one who becomes ridiculously excited about a new adventure.
A boat trip.
A new bicycle.
A holiday somewhere unexplored.
The teenager is still there too.
The one who once wanted to feel powerful.
Seen.
Respected.
The one who may now enjoy sitting behind the wheel of a beautiful car and, somewhere very quietly inside, think:
Yes. I made it.
And then there is the young adult.
The ambitious one.
The one who had a vision.
The one who imagined a door with a title written on it.
Dr.
Engineer.
Professor.
Manager.
Followed by your name.
That person is still there too.
You are all of them.
And more.
Some of those early dreams became goals.
Some of those goals became achievements.
Some became stories you are proud to tell.
And some stopped somewhere along the way.
Not necessarily because you were incapable.
Sometimes they simply ran into an invisible wall.
A sentence.
“It’s too late to…”
“At my age?”
“Where would I even start?”
“What would people think?”
“I should have done that years ago.”
“I’m too old for that now.”
There it is.
Not always a physical limitation.
Sometimes just a setting.
How many of your settings are still yours?
This is a kind reminder to look at the settings you are still carrying.
The ones that no longer serve you.
The standards that became outdated years ago.
The rules that never really described you in the first place.
Perhaps you still follow them because:
“People say…”
“That’s just how it’s done.”
“I’m used to it.”
“At my age…”
“People like me don’t…”
But who exactly wrote those rules?
And when?
More importantly:
Why are they still allowed to run your life?
You may be 40, 59, 62, 75.
Yes, biologically, age matters.
Bodies change.
Energy changes.
Hormones change.
Recovery changes.
Experience changes us too.
So I am not suggesting that age is meaningless.
That would be nonsense.
But the number itself is only one part of the story.
The interpretation attached to that number can become far more powerful than we realise — influencing what we expect from ourselves, what we attempt, and sometimes what we stop attempting.
At 50, one person thinks:
“I’m getting old.”
Another thinks:
“I finally know myself.”
At 60, one person thinks:
“It’s too late to start.”
Another thinks:
“I probably have twenty or thirty years left. I’d better make them interesting.”
At 70, one person stops making plans.
Another starts learning a language.
Same number.
Very different instruction.
And that is the point.
Numbers can describe you.
They do not have to define you.
Age can give you information.
It does not automatically deserve authority over every decision you make.
The moment you begin consciously questioning what that number has come to mean in your life — how much importance you give it, how much power you allow it to have, and whether it still deserves that power — something changes.
You are no longer simply following the programme.
You are back in the pilot’s seat.
And perhaps that is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves from time to time:
Which parts of my life are truly limited by reality — and which are limited by an old setting I have never thought to question?
References / Further Reading
Tully-Wilson, C., Bojack, R., Millear, P. M., Stallman, H. M., Allen, A., & Mason, J. (2022). Self-perceptions of aging: A systematic review of longitudinal studies. Psychology and Aging.
Knight, R. L., Chalabaev, A., McNarry, M. A., Mackintosh, K. A., & Hudson, J. (2022). Do age stereotype-based interventions affect health-related outcomes in older adults? A systematic review and future directions. British Journal of Health Psychology, 27(2), 338–373.
Zhu, M., Chen, H., Ding, X., & Li, Z. (2025). Effects of Self-Perception of Aging Interventions in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. The Gerontologist, 65(4), gnae127.