HELP! I Can’t Stop Calling Myself Middle-Aged!

Earlier this year I wrote about aging in step with my car. A little reflection on my unusual identification with my near-Vintage “Mom” car. 

Six months later, I had an epiphany. My car is clearly no longer middle-aged. She’s elderly. After entrusting her to my eighteen year old son for the past month, I’ve accepted that she doesn’t need a mechanic anymore, she needs assisted living. I bristle when people refer to their boats as “she,” and yet after two decades together, my instincts tell me my loyal mechanical companion for 20 years is also a she. And she’s old. A “Grandma,” car with no offspring.

I don’t call my car middle-aged because clearly she is not. She’s in her twilight years. I accept this. 

With my own life, this level of honesty eludes me. I cannot seem to stop this reflexive tick of referring to myself and my friends as “middle-aged.” I’m not a gerontologist, or a psychic, but I’m pretty certain I’m not going to live another 63 years no matter how much bone broth I pretend to drink. No one in my lifetime is going to live to be 120 years old, and yet the most I’ll admit to is “late middle age.” 

Which is so silly, it makes me laugh. Who am I doing this for? An invisible actuarial table? The good news is I’m finally on to myself. Self-awareness is the first step, at least to having a sense of humor. One of my comedy gurus Gene Perret - wrote a story about a man who didn’t realize he was balding. His kids teased him about this but he never laughed. Not because his feelings were hurt, but because he had no idea he was balding. He had no self-awareness about the back of his head. Perret’s point is simple, self-awareness is one of the foundations of humor. 

The kind of humor self-awareness produces is very often the self-deprecating kind. Which can be tricky. You don’t want to overuse it. And in business, you never want to make a joke about your performance in the job you’re being hired to do. 

Curious, I took some time to look a little deeper at this and discovered researchers have found that gentle self-deprecation is useful! It can build trust, lower defensiveness, and make us seem more confident, not less. If you want to learn more specifics, this article in  The Neuroscience News  breaks this down further. One point I had never considered is the role that cultural differences play in using self-awareness and self-deprecation.

“Cultural Differences: It’s more common in individualistic cultures that value relatability.”

I had not considered the cultural implications of, for example, Communism on self-deprecating humor. Stalin probably not a fan. 

One interpretation of self-awareness informing the use of self-deprecation I find very helpful is that it’s not simply making fun of ourselves. It is taking yourself, or the situation that you’re in, less seriously. “Expressing an awareness of your quirks can show not only  that you are comfortable in your own skin, but that you are also less judgemental of flaws in others.” 

That’s gotta be helpful for everyone. From this blog forward, then, I commit to no longer referring to my car or myself as middle aged. It’s slim pickings, although I do like, “old enough to know better, but young enough to keep trying.” Too bad it sounds like someone on a front porch in a rocking chair.