With age, the degree of challenge is proportional to the satisfaction experienced

“Youth’s a stuff that will not endure” said the English poet Shakespeare. Rightly so. As mortal beings, it is inconceivable to be young forever; that is, unless an elixir for life is invented by budding alchemists. Becoming older, thus, is common, inevitable and expected. Similarly, the symptoms that accompany age should also not be called into question because they are part and parcel of it, and yet, they are still pondered. Why is it that we develop wrinkles as we age, why is it that our health deteriorates as we get older, why is it that our life follows a parabolic trajectory where the most successful and virile years are in our mid 20s and early 30s before we plummet downwards thereafter? The trajectory of age, consequently, is paradoxical in a sense. We become as dependent as newborns as we move into our 70s. Our deteriorating physical wellbeing is a plausible explanation for the challenges that accompany old age. Overcoming the increasing obstacles of old age, accordingly, would reap rewards more pleasurable and satisfying than the challenges faced when young. Nevertheless, there is no objectivity with which to measure the degree of ‘challenge’, and as a result, the hurdles faced by children are tantamount to their level of experience and are incomparable with the hurdles encountered by an older individual. In spite of this, the increasing number and demand of the responsibilities encountered by older people is sufficient to argue for the greater satisfaction they accrue.