Forty used to be the age at which poeple did the: 'What am I doing with my life?, what have I achieved?' bit. We seem to be a 'society in a hurry.' It's ironic that never have people had such life expectencey and yet never before has there been such a cultural obsession and worship of youth for youth's sake.
Self esteeem can become wrapped up in what we feel society expects from us and for us. For example I also hear things like: 'By my age I should
have a family, marriage, proper career-fill in the blank. Where do these expectations come from if not the daily onslaught of images we are conditioned by bombarding us daily-nay hourly!
Healthy levels of self-esteem need to be a by-product of needs being met allowing for individual differences between different people. For example some people are better suited to family, big business or whatever than other poeple. We need to discover what is right for us. THe commercial yardstick that tells us what we should be like and have at given points in our lives can only, I think, make us less comfortable with our lives because if we apply by it's rules then we are 'playing to the beat of someone else's tune.'
When people lament an upcoming birthday ('Oh no I'm thirty next week!') what they may be saying in affect is: 'I haven't got/achieved what I have been conditioned (by society) to have/achieve by this time.
Mark
