SLTM_CC#10....Talking about the Age; Expectation and Excuse

(Intro)
How old are you?
Isn’t it the first question you ask or being asked when you meet new people?
Even though Korea has become a lot westernized we still have strong tendency to concern about the age.
Then what is age? According to the dictionary it says "How long something has existed"
Yes, tonight I would like to talk about the Age to you with my personal experiences

(Body)
Personally I was the kind of person who has huge expectations on the age.
When I was a teenager I had a huge expectation on the age 20 but When I got there, age 20 was still too young to do something so I had another expectation on age 25.
Whenever I saw the re-turned students after finishing their military service I thought they are real-man, True man they had been through with military service and mentally strong and matured!
The image of age 25’s expectation was like wearing military coat, long hair with some of beard…all the time staying at the school library studying and reading lots of books….that was my expectation of age 25.
But when I got there….the reality was only a few things were matched with my expectation.
The outfit was perfectly matched …..wearing military coat, long hair and beard living at library all the time, all year around but no study…just living at the library…In fact, nowhere to go…not welcomed to any place…only busy with studying English to get a high score at TOEIC test and preparing resume at the last year of Uni. And the worst thing was not enough money, too old to ask money to parents. No time to do part-time job… 25 was still too young and not matured yet

So I had another expectation, age 30th. The business man! Regardless working for a company or doing business.
My expected image of age 30 was with suit and tie and important document case in my hands and on the way for business trip to other countries…
Short-cut hair style…busy with meetings, negotiation and presentation in front of many people….and most importantly cash and credit card in my wallet!.
Not only these tangible things but also intangible and mental maturity, I expected, very sharp and fast decision making in personal life and company life…
But When I got there…Age 30 It was just like new born baby at the company, did not know much about company life, didn’t have any authorities to make a decision at all….. only full authority over the copy machine!
All day making copy, all kind of size of papers…B5, A4, A3, etc… Age 30 was too young in the company to do something important; if the company size was the bigger your work in the company was the smaller and pettier.

So I had another expectation, Age 40!
We call it “No temptation” Age 40 is so matured mentally and spiritually that superior to any temptation in the life. And in the company hierarchy, age 40 should reach certain level to decide important matters with dignity…but when I got there which was a few year ago to me….no not at all.
I have seen so many people around me who are way over then age 40 but still struggling in all kind of temptations and making mistakes and mis-judgments and mis-decision.
No temptation cannot be achieved merely by the number of age.
From the Age 40 I gave up having expectation on the age. When I stop to having the expectation on the age I found out that another word come up to me about age….that was “Age Excuse” like I am too old to do that…at my age that is too late…The Age Expectation is changing to Age Excuse…I noticed it.
Some days later I got transferred to other department in my company and became to work with Mr. Kim. He is about 10 years older than me and I worked with me 10 years ago. And one day he called me and said “Hey, Mr. Chan, Could you help me with this PPT material? I am not good at this power point program; I am too old to learn it” But I felt that I had same situation long time ago, strong sense of déjà vu, and I found out that he mentioned it to me exactly 10 years ago when I was in my 30s and he was in his 40s. and 10 years later he is using the same sentence with his same tone of his voice “I am too old to learn…..”

(Conclusion)
So let me ask you again? How old are you?
This is only asking "How long have you been existed in this world so far”
Age itself does not give us any expectation or excuse.
We are using the number of age with all kind of excuse like…too young…too young to do that….and all of sudden, at certain point of our age too old….too old….

A few days ago I met one of gentle man retired from my company more than 20 years ago, and he said that he is in regret not to start something like new job or business soon after his retirement he thought it was too late to start something new..and furthermore he didn’t expect he could live this much longer, so I said to that gentle man “ why don’t you start right now sir?
And he said…”now? 허 허 허…..I am 80th… It is too late to start”…and I was nodding my head without saying anything….

There is no time too young,

There is no time too old

There is only time now. just do whatever you want right now!