You'll Know Better When You're Older

Humansofnewyork.com

As someone who is still young herself it’s funny how I can use the phrase, "you'll know better when you're older." I hated that phrase growing up, if felt so belittling every time some adult would say it.  I would think who are you acting all high and mighty.

I still get a little annoyed when someone says that phrase to me, but now I know it doesn’t come from a condescending place, but truly from experience. Because everyone across the world has to literally become older, we age. We will age into our adult bodies, and grow in maturity. The cyclical nature of life, youth to adulthood is a universal for every human being.

So the phrase "you'll understand when your older” becomes one of the most reliable universal truths, because everyone gets older. 

There are just some things you can't comprehend when you're young, because you’re young. It's the truth. So much of life is experiential. If you've never been put in the position to have certain experiences, you really can't truly know them.

The way education is set up in the United States you can go till your 18, until after college even, without ever holding down a job. If you’ve never had a job, and never had to deal with customers, you can read articles all you want but you’ll never truly get what it’s like. That doesn’t mean you're lesser than anyone who does, but you truly can't comprehend what it means to work in that setting until you do.

You’ll understand when you’re older, isn’t necessarily speaking to age, but experiences. Once you are older you’ll get certain experiences, and those experiences will change you and make you see things differently.

Same thing with certain race and gender relations. Until you are a
certain age you won't get why people treat you the way they treat you because of those factors. You'll understand and see that you are being treated differently, but you can't contextualize why fully. 

We all age, but we grow up in so many different ways. Some grow up to soon, and others never do. Maturity, responsibility some of the things that phrase point to are not given as a birthday gift. If you do not possess them now, with time however long it takes, you will.

Some many people look back at moments in their life and think “I would do it differently now.” That's because you’re older, and now you know