Fuck all the adults who say this to kids with less privileged childhoods.
Anyone who says ‘These years are the best of your life’ are really just telling you that their life peaked at that age.
If you play your cards right and have a large serving of luck, this will not be true for you.
I interpret it to be more about the weight given to different pros and cons about different stages in life.
Some people really, really prize autonomy, and don’t get to experience that until pretty late in life. For these people, the stifling limits of adolescence, without their own money or independence from parents, can be miserable.
Some people really, really prize being free of responsibilities. To this group, sometimes adulthood comes with too many challenges and responsibilities that they find independence to be stifling.
Some care about physical health, which may correlate with younger ages.
Some love the ease of friendships in adolescence and early adulthood, and long for that dynamic when they realize that making new friends or maintaining existing friendships gets harder after 30, and even more so after 40.
Some feel very strongly about the loved ones they’ve lost since their childhood, and wish they could’ve appreciated those shared experiences more in the moment.
And we all have different experiences. I have no idea if my best years are ahead of me or behind me, but I could see an argument in either direction.
Right, but most of these factors can be significantly mitigated as we age, making them non-issues.
Being more free of responsibility can be achieved via life choices in career and family. Choose a career with flexibility, and prioritize flexibility when finding new jobs or negotiating promotions. Don’t have kids if you don’t want them or aren’t ready for them.
Physical health generally declines with age, but good diet, exercise, and sleep habits keep nearly all these effects at bay. Many people can become more youthful with age simply because they are in such poor health as children.
Making and keeping friends as an adult is not that hard. While it doesn’t “just happen” like it did in school, you tend to make friends with people who you actually have things in common with. Like, for example, people who value a life without needless stress, and who value their physical health.
We can certainly mourn those who have left us. But we also make new relationships as we get older. Is life better when you have a grandparent? Or when you have a grandchild?
The trend I’ve seen with people who say this to kids is that they have failed in one or more of these areas. The classic being, say, the divorced truck driver who had kids he didn’t want, and who only interactes with people at work and at the bar. Older people I know who are doing well tend to tell younger people the steps to follow to achieve the same success and happiness.
All this is just saying that you personally put more weight on the things that are better about later adulthood than early adulthood or adolescence. And that can be your choice, but it doesn’t have to be everyone’s choice.
You acknowledge that the health and friendships piece gets harder with age but push back against the idea that it inevitably gets worse. But averaged among all people, things will tend to get worse, and some people who actually experience that deterioration will conclude (as is their right) that things were better when health and friendships were easier.
But we also make new relationships as we get older. Is life better when you have a grandparent? Or when you have a grandchild?
These aren’t symmetrical. When you are a young person who loves your grandparents, you haven’t actually mourned a loss of a grandchild you personally knew. On the flip side, when you have a grandchild you might also view that relationship through the lens of a lost relationship with a deceased grandparent. In other words, only one of those experiences is 100% good, rather than a bittersweet mix of good and sad.
Not to mention, plenty of people will never have grandchildren. To them, the mourned loss of a grandparent is the end of that road. There’s no replacement on its way.
Put it this way: if given the opportunity to wake up 10 years in the past, in your body of 10 years ago, how positive or negative would you view that? Plenty of people would vote on different sides of that, and that’s OK to have different views based on one’s own experiences.
It’s rose-tinted glasses in play as well. I have many fond memories of my university days and deeply miss all the time I had with my friends that I now rarely see. I would encourage any student to cherish that aspect. There were many, many, difficult aspects of that time as well though, and a decade or so on I deeply appreciate the autonomy I have now.
There are certain unique experiences you don’t get later. There are a few places that have field trips in college, but for most people that is only during regular primary school.
The nature of those unique experiences varies from person to person. My field trips might have been good memories had it not been for the fact that the horrible assholes I was stuck going to school with were there.
I still remember being told that in high school, and at 35 I can say with reasonable confidence that it was in fact the worst part of my life, not the best. Fuck you Mr. Ford, you were wrong, and you were an asshole, and if I can ever be arsed to locate your grave, I’ll piss on it.
My experience is the opposite. Adolescence was horrible, young adulthood was hard, adulthood has been better. I am taking care of myself and I am happy with my relationships.
I’m glad things have improved for you and that you are doing well.
If anyone tells you that your teenage years are the best years of your life: Smile, nod, and slowly back away. Then never talk to that person again if you can help it.
Even if it was your mommy?
Especially if it’s your mommy
Fight for a better world, both young and old.
Most people don’t want to die for a better world.
And that’s the kind of fighting that it takes.
This all or nothing thinking often just turns into an excuse for doing nothing.
I can make a better world by making things better in my immediate vicinity, without dying for it. I can help one person at a time, and it might not scale to some kind of globally noticeable improvement, but it can still a difference to each of those people, and was worth whatever effort or sacrifice involved.
Being a good little slave doesn’t fix things.
Voting and recycling isn’t going to fix a single problem, because that’s what we’ve been doing for 50 years and things got worse.
It’s become painfully obvious to many people now that peaceful protest is ineffective and ignored.
The real issue is too many people have become complacent in being domesticated.
I don’t know, I’m more and more satisfied with life the older I get
Yeah other than my country falling apart my life is better at 39 than pretty much ever before. I’m genuinely happy. Again, other than the country stuff.
I damn sure wasn’t happy and confident like this at 18 or whatever. I’m hitting my stride.
Back when I was in school they told me I was supposed to enjoy my youth and that it would be about the best time of my life. What they actually did was to demotivate me regarding my future. School was hell. Life is much better nowadays.
Yeah when I grew up I was a confused bag of hormones who had not yet learnt to deal with anything.
I think my expectations have just gotten more realistic?
Exactly. In youth, everything is important, and everything is a big fucking deal.
Over time, especially if you’re introspective (not everyone has this ability, it seems), you’ll come to temper those expectations.
The whole “high school is the best years of your life” thing was always total bullshit. The drugs are much better in college.
Well look on the bright side…there’s probably a bright side!
I was less impressed when I learned that all the actors in that scene were on bicycle seats. But then I was more impressed when I learned they only had one ladder to let them down to take a pee.
Another fun Life of Brian fact: the production re-used the Tunisian sets built for Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth television series. Zeffirelli was furious that the Tunisian authorities allowed this; he apparently did not know how money works.
Brightside is life expectancy is on a downward trend!
I can’t remember which movie, but some basic rom-com. Girl was in a fight with her ex and trying to make him feel bad said, “I gave you the best years of my life.”
And dude, utterly confused, responds, “those were your best?”
The movie was forgettable, but that absolutely savage line stuck with me.
Kate: I wasted the best years of my life on you.
Stuart: Those were your best years?
That’s just shit people say, because their memory is skewed to remember some stuff.
After drinking that much lead you won’t remember anything better
Yeah the people who say that tell boring stories of glory days.
How i felt when i was told nobody would love me more than my parents.
I’ve never really had much of a family. The whole family bond thing seems like a farce. I love my parents because they were good parents, not simply because they were my parents.
Don’t listen to people who peaked during high school.
No, it will get so much better. And so, so, so much worse. Sometimes in the course of like an hour.
And sometimes it’s both simultaneously.
