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Birthdays – Coaching Lesson

Hi, I’m AJ and welcome to this month’s coaching lesson. Birthdays. Birthdays are interesting. When you’re young, birthdays for most people are a lot of fun, right? You get to have parties. You get gifts.

Maybe your friends or family, they come over and in America, as we discussed in the conversation in America we have cake and all kinds of fun stuff. A little birthday cake and blow out the candles and sing happy birthday and its lots of fun. Most kids love their birthday because you’re the special person for that day.

And then, y’know, as we get older into our teens and 20s, typically still fun, y’know, when kids get into their 20s in the States, in America, a lot of times they’ll go out again with their friends. They might still have a party of some kind. Or they, when they’re 21 they’ll go out drinking typically and celebrate. Yes, I can drink legally now and get really drunk and fun, fun, fun.

But as anyone knows who is older, as birthdays come later, in your 30s and then your 40s and beyond, the feeling is a bit different. And certainly this has happened to me. I’m 48 now, this year, 48, and recently I’ve noticed on some of the comments, especially on my YouTube channel of people occasionally, I’ll get comments like, AJ, you’re getting older, y’know, oh my god, AJ, you look older now.

And, y’know, I kind of have to think about it. I’m like, well, hm. And I look at my oldest videos from 7, 8, 10 years ago and I look at my current videos and I realize, well, I do look older. And the truth is, I am older, okay? I am, y’know? 8, 9, 10 years older than when I made my first videos and put them out there on the website.

So as you get older, of course, birthdays often become a day or a time when you think about the topic of aging. Where you realize that there is an end to this life. When you’re 22, you don’t usually think about it so much. When you’re 48, you think about it a lot more and I can only assume that when you’re 58, 68, 78, you think about it a lot more because it’s getting closer. Mortality, right? The truth of death. The truth that our lives have an end point.

And not only that, but in our modern world, our modern culture, and I think this is true everywhere in the world that I have traveled. I have traveled in many, many places in the world and it’s true everywhere that the view of aging, the culture of aging, of getting older, is much different now. Because we have a media culture now, a worldwide television, movie and even print media, like newspapers, magazines, all of that, we have a worldwide media culture that is youth-focused, right?

You look at most of the pictures, it’s always, y’know, super beautiful young people. Most movies, most television shows, there’s a message. It’s not said directly but indirectly there’s a message that being young is the best and being older sucks. And there are a lot of other beliefs that are sort of being sent to us through media channels especially that being older means older people are uncool, right?

You see this in advertising, a lot of advertising, the old people are…how do I use this computer, I don’t know, right? They seem almost kind of foolish, uncool. And the young people, they’re all like hip and cool, yeah. They got…they’re using all the newest technology.

Well they send some subtle and sometimes not subtle, sometimes very strong, messages to us, again and again and again, day after day after day after day after day. Aging is bad. Aging is negative. When you get older it means you get…you become this weak, foolish, uncool person who’s not important in society anymore. When you’re young, oh, you’re energetic, you’re attractive, you’re cool, you’re hip.

Everything is great.

And that presents a challenge sometimes, these negative messages about aging. Because again, we’re all going to age unless we die tragically when we’re young, which is also terrible, we’re going to get older.

And in traditional societies, in ancient societies, there were many positive messages, positive beliefs about getting older that older people had a very important role in society. Now we’re getting messages that are very, very different from that.

And so all of these thoughts going through my head, and my most recent birthday, and especially after seeing those comments of people saying, AJ, you’re getting older, like it’s a terrible, bad thing. And I started asking myself, well, y’know, so how…how should we age? How should we get older? How can I, how can you, age well…age in a positive way?

Because even if you watching this now are 17 years old, you’re going to get older. Next year you’ll be 18, the next year 19, 20…and, y’know, it just continues your whole life. It’s inevitable. So thinking of it as something bad and negative and having a bunch of beliefs that because you’re getting older all these terrible things must happen and that you’re not as important anymore…that is a very bad way to age.

We’re getting a lot of bad messages about it.

Indeed, there are some very big dangers to aging. There are big dangers and I think some of the dangers come from youth, from our youth, from beliefs and things we get when we’re young. And some of the dangers come when we get older. Let’s talk about both because I think in order to age well, we first of all have to avoid or undo these dangers, these problems of aging in the modern world.

So first of all, we have the dangers of youth that we have to avoid or unlearn. What are those? What are those? One of them, I’d say the biggest danger of youth that can make us age badly is conditioning, youthful conditioning. What is conditioning? We can think of it as programming, programming. Again, like all these media messages I’ve discussed.

It’s a kind of mental programming and especially when we’re young, we’re very open to being programmed. It’s easier for the media, teachers and others to put beliefs into our heads that when we’re young, especially, that we just accept. And we don’t even realize it’s happening. We don’t even realize we’re doing it, because see…and the reason it’s such a danger especially for younger people is that when you’re young you just don’t have as much life experience, right? You have much less life experience, therefore it’s easier for you to be fooled.

And when you’re young, also you’re very oftentimes overconfident and so again, you actually believe things and accept things that actually aren’t true, that aren’t real, without questioning, not based on your own direct experience. That’s a big danger because, as I see, with many young people they accept these messages, for example, about older people and some young people will almost even kind of laugh…ha ha, older people, they’re so uncool. My parents, they’re so foolish.

And they accept these messages, even though they’ve never been old before, so they don’t know what it’s like. So where are the beliefs coming from? Again, they’re coming from mostly media. But by accepting all these negative messages, they’re creating a situation that’s very bad because those beliefs can go deep, deep, deep and then 20 years later that person’s no longer young but they have those beliefs in their mind quite deep.

And then they start feeling those bad things about themselves. Oh my god, I’m 48 now. Oh, maybe that means I’m not cool. Maybe I’m not important…maybe, right? All those things they thought when they were young about old people, they start to think about themselves, even if they’re not true and that is a big danger when you’re young is just accepting beliefs and ideas without real experience, without really challenging them. Very, very dangerous and it can hurt you as you get older.

Another common thing with younger people is that they’re, they kind of resist or they’re closed to tradition, to things that are very, very old. Again, this is especially bad in the modern world. In the past this was less of a problem but now, again, through the media the message is that anything old is not good. That’s the general message we get and that’s just…that’s very sad because actually there are many things that are ancient, very old traditions that are in fact very important, very wise and much, much better than what we have now than the new thing, than the cool thing, than the modern thing.

But a lot of young people, again, through this kind of youthful programming, will just kind of push away anything that’s old…old traditions, aw, it’s not cool, oh, it’s boring, without really thinking too deeply. It’s a big danger. It’s a big danger that will hurt you when you get older. And overall there’s also a bit of a…there can be kind of a future focus, a feeling of like, ah, I’ve got all this time, right? I’m young. It doesn’t matter. I can do it in the future. That can create laziness or it can create a kind of stress or something where you’re always focused on the future, future, future, but not here in the present.

So those are some of the dangers of youth that can hurt us as we get older. There are also dangers of aging that when you start getting older, let’s say into your 40s and over, other dangers come up. Again, sometimes from the media or sometimes just from our own minds. Whereas young people can often sometimes focus too much on the future, or thinking that oh, I can do everything in the future, people who get older sometimes the danger is to focus too much on the past, to look back too much, to try to hold onto the past, y’know, whether it was…especially the good things of the past.

A danger of getting older is to avoid change, to become less flexible, right? And start to say oh, I don’t like change anymore and to get a little more rigid. I think that along with this is stagnation. Sometimes people who get older, they start getting into middle age and older, they can stagnate, meaning they stop learning as much.

They stop challenging themselves as much. And this can create a stagnation. Stagnation is when something doesn’t move, for example, if water is stagnant…that’s the adjective…it means it’s not moving at all and water that doesn’t move at all, stagnant water, becomes kind of dirty and unhealthy, right? You don’t want to drink it. Whereas moving water is cleaner and it’s kind of similar to ourselves and our minds. When we’re moving, meaning we’re growing and we’re moving and we’re learning, when we’re flexible, then we are also healthier and more energetic.

I’d say especially for people getting quite a bit older, y’know, 50s, 60s and above, another big danger of aging, aging badly, is to focus too much on loss. Because the sad thing is that as we get older then we start to lose things. We may have friends or family members who die, for example, which is very, very tough. We may have many different failures in our life, in our lives. That’s normal.

When you live long enough you are eventually going to have failures. Now the good thing is, you’re going to have successes, too, but it’s a danger that sometimes people who get older, they focus too much on the losses and the failures and they don’t equally focus on the new things that are coming into their life or the successes in their life. So it becomes unbalanced and this can create a kind of bitterness, a kind of tiredness, big, big dangers for aging.

So how do we avoid these dangers so that we age well? Well, I’d say that overall we have to reprogram our minds. We’ve got to get rid of that programming that we’ve gotten from the modern media and elsewhere about this very negative view of aging and to see aging in a different way. That there’s a different maybe purpose or focus we can have as we get older.

And for me, the answer is that developing wisdom or loving wisdom, that is the main goal, the main purpose, the main point of getting older, of aging…developing what I’ll call loving wisdom. What is that? I think of this kind of loving wisdom as a feeling, as a realization of connection to everything and to everyone.

That is, as you get older you can start to see and understand and feel that everyone and everything is connected. And you can especially feel that right now in the present moment. So that as you get older you get more wise. You begin to understand what is true at the deepest level, what is most important at the deepest level. And you can be more clear about what’s not really important.

You can unlearn a lot of that conditioning as you get older. So you’re young, you can’t help it, y’know?

Parents, teachers, everybody wants to tell you what to do and tell you what to believe and television, media, even movies, even if you think you’re just watching a comedy on television, they’re sending you messages…trying to program you in a certain way, make you believe certain things.

And especially when you’re young, everybody older than you is trying to do that to you. And one of the good things about aging that is possible, a good possible thing about aging, is that you can start to unlearn that. You can start to look at these things and realize that’s actually not true. That’s not actually important. And you can start to get rid of these things in a very positive process of unlearning.

And each time you get rid of one of those beliefs or one of those programs, like your mind, your spirit gets a little lighter, a little clearer. You feel a little more peaceful, a little more happy. And as you go through this process over a few years, you get happier and more peaceful as you get older and you develop this wisdom where you begin to see what is true and deep and important at a more fundamental level, right, a more basic level without all that modern noise. This, I believe is the number one benefit, the most positive thing about getting older that all of us can and should focus on.

Now, in addition to that, it’s important as you get older to continue to take care of your body, to continue to challenge your mind, because this image we have of the old people who are foolish and weak, that’s not necessary. Y’know, maybe right at the end of our lives that will happen but for most of our lives, even into our 60s, 70s, 80s, if we continue to challenge ourselves, if we stay open, stay flexible, keep those good things about youth, being open, being flexible, being curious, challenging ourselves, learning still, being physically active. If we continue doing all those things, then even as we get older we can continue to be fully alive.

Those are the good things about youth that we want to take with us through our whole life. While at the same time we’re going to get rid of the programming and all the unnecessary stuff, unlearn, unlearn, unlearn, and develop our wisdom. Not so focused on the future. Not so focused on the past, but actually just here in this present moment appreciating our lives, enjoying our lives, realizing what is absolutely most important to us, what’s most important in life and what really is not. That is the big, big benefit of aging that all of us can do and accomplish.

So, what to do this month for you? I usually give you kind of an assignment and encourage you to take some action each month. So I’m going to give you a different assignment depending how old you are. If you’re young, let’s say in your 20s, even in your 30s, or younger, then what I want you to do is to question your beliefs.

Question your beliefs. I want you this month to look at all the strong beliefs, the strong opinions you have about yourself, about other people, about life, about politics, about religion, about everything. You could write them all down, your strongest beliefs, whatever they are. I believe this. I believe this. I believe this is true. Write them all down.

Then what I want you to do this month is each day look at that list, look at each belief and ask yourself some questions. Is this really true? Is this really true? Is it really true? And after you ask yourself that, say how do I know this is true? How do I know this is true? Like if you have a belief that, oh, I don’t know, that eating tomatoes is bad…they’re unhealthy.

Ask yourself is this really true? Are tomatoes really unhealthy? Then ask yourself how do I know this is true? Or why do I believe this? Why do I believe this? How do I know? Why do I believe this? And then start, y’know, what is your answer? Is it because you, every time you eat tomatoes you get sick? Well, that…that’s a good answer. That’s direct experience. That means at least for you maybe tomatoes are unhealthy.

Or is it just because somebody told you, maybe just your mom or your dad or a cousin or a friend said oh, don’t eat tomatoes, they’re unhealthy. And you just kind of accepted the belief but you never really tested it. So maybe you start to realize well, wait, maybe…maybe this isn’t true. How do I really know? Of course, that’s a silly example, the tomato thing, but this could be true about everything, even your most powerful, strong, important beliefs. Question them this month. Question, question. Do you really know?

How do you really know this? Try to let go and unlearn as many of those beliefs as possible.

Now if you’re more middle-aged like me, 40s, 50s, then I want you to really focus on what is most important in your life. This is something that naturally happens for a lot of people at this age. Just start asking yourself what is really most important to me in life? Yeah, maybe when you were younger you thought it was money and career. Is that still true?

Ask yourself. What is really…and just keep, you’ve got to ask these questions again, not just one time, but every day for two, three, four weeks, you ask yourself what is really most important in my life? What is most important? Is this really important? Is that really important? What’s most important to me?

Reassess your life. Reexamine your life. And just see what answers come. I have no idea what’s going to come but just asking the questions will give you good answers.

And finally, if you’re older, let’s say you’re in your 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, then I want you to ask a different question. I want you to ask the question what can I let go of? What can I let go of? Because one of the big dangers of being older is trying to hold on, especially to the past, right? Holding on to things that are gone or things that will go, that will leave, dealing with the impermanence.

So I want you to ask this month what can I let go of? What can I let go of? And just ask that question again and again and again each and every day this month and just see what answers come up. Your brain, your creativity, your intuition, your unconscious or subconscious, they’re all very, very intelligent and in many ways more intelligent than your conscious mind. So by asking these questions and being open you will often start to get very powerful answers that will guide you to a happier, more enjoyable peaceful life and a better aging.

Alright, so that’s it. If you have a birthday coming up, enjoy your birthday this year. Doesn’t matter what your age is, if you’re young, if you’re middle-aged, if you’re older, enjoy it. But think a little bit deeply about this topic of aging this month and ask yourself those questions.

See you next time. Bye for now.