Age Matters Less When You’re Old Enough to Know Better

Age matters less now that you’re older. I lied. Age gaps always matter, right? Wrong. In Back to the Future, Marty McFly’s age meant nothing when time travel put him in the same class as his parents. So, why does age matter less as we age? Because shared time, not numbers, defines relationships, revealing a truth that unfolds over the years.

But speaking of those formative teenage years, remember when you were a senior in high school? You might have had a few junior friends. You barely acknowledged the sophomores. And, as for the freshmen… did your high school even have a freshman class? Who knew? Back then, who cared?

Today, it doesn’t matter what class they were in; if they were in high school at the same time you were, they were all your age. At this point, numbers simply have no basis in reality. Age matters less as shared time rewrites the math. Age gaps that felt vast in your youth offer but a negligible distinction in later years.

You’re a lot older now, and society’s fixation on age gaps increasingly seems like a mirage that fades with time. A year or two won’t matter when you sit down and talk about your favorite songs, most memorable movies, or the TV shows you watched as kids. Shared time lets you reflect on the nation’s response to significant events.

For example, it used to be that everyone exchanged memories of when Kennedy was assassinated. They didn’t ask you how old you were when it happened. They just asked you where you were. Apollo 11 and the lunar landing quickly replaced that sad day in November as a commonly discussed cultural milestone. Then it was the 1980 USA Olympic hockey win. Then September 11.

Get it? Over time, living in the same timeline gives you something in common with other people. In your younger years, age differences separate you. As these shared experiences accumulate, they displace the importance of that age difference. They become the thread that weaves your life closer to others.

Why Age Matters Less in Numbers

Here’s what I mean.

We’ll begin at the end. How different are these three people when they’re aged 69, 70, and 71? Not that different at all. They grew up together. They all attended high school at the same time. They likely had very similar favorite songs, favorite movies, and favorite TV shows. Or at least they knew of each other’s favorites.

How do these retirees see their age difference? Chances are, they don’t view themselves as much different from each other. Math sheds light on the reason for this.

To the 69-year-old, the 70-year-old is 1.5% older—barely a blip. The 71-year-old? Just 2.9% older.

Sound quiet?

Crickets.

Let’s view this another way. Comparing birthdays, the 70-year-old reached age 30 much earlier than the 69-year-old would, and the 71-year-old will reach 31 in three months. That means they’re all 30 at the same time. Their birthdays would still be within a few months of each other.

However, contrast this with the stark difference the perception of age presents to preschoolers.

Imagine these three same people as pre-K kids with ages 2, 3, and 4. They’re not old enough to have much in the way of experience, let alone shared experiences. In fact, they are only now beginning to share experiences.

How do they see each other?

Picture these three as pre-K kids: 2, 3, and 4 years old. They’re too young for shared experiences. To a 4-year-old (scaled to 30), the 3-year-old feels like 22.5, the 2-year-old like 15—a teenager’s gap. The two-year-old (as a 30-year-old) would see the 3-year-old as age 45 and the 4-year-old as 60, very nearly the way a child sees a parent.

In short, the more years you live, the less a year matters. That’s why age matters less the older you get.

For those familiar, I know I promised no math in my previous columns. I just violated my own rule. Sorry for the numbers.

How Time Makes Age Matter Less

On the other hand, I never said I’d avoid physics. A term from this field might help to better explain the power of perception at work here. As you no doubt recall from your graduate-level classes in Einsteinian Physics, when traveling at relativistic speed, a phenomenon known as “time dilation” occurs. (Don’t worry. No PhD required, I promise.) Time dilation describes Einstein’s wild idea that time stretches when you’re zooming near light speed. (Also, don’t worry. There won’t be a quiz.)

In English, this means that as one approaches the speed of light, time appears to slow down.

You’ve noticed this, haven’t you? Not that you often find yourself tooling along the highway at 186,000 miles per second (i.e., the speed of light). Still, with no need to risk a fairly sizable speeding ticket, what is your perception of the passage of time? How fast does a year go by now that you’re older compared to how long each year lasted when you were in elementary school?

It’s like time dilation in reverse. Instead of time slowing down, as you age, time seems to speed up. If it feels like the years get squeezed together, the distance between years gets smaller. As a toddler, someone a year older than you feels so much older than someone a year older than you when you’re 60 years old.

A fascinating study out of Brazil published in Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria (https://www.scielo.br/j/anp/a/d6SvJK5tM6kCFPTmpVj5pSz/) suggests this “apparent rapidity of time is a major cognitive illusion” stemming from “differences in dopaminergic and/or cholinergic pathways.” Essentially, as you age, you have fewer novel experiences. Everything seems more of the same. It’s those new experiences that give you the dopamine hit that stretches out time.

If you think this might give you a hint on how to slow down time as you grow older, you’re about 2,000 years behind the times. You didn’t need a Brazilian study to clue you in. You just needed your Tully. Cicero wrote, “Other relaxations are peculiar to certain times, places, and stages of life, but the study of letters is the nourishment of our youth, and the joy of our old age.”

In other words, if you want to make your life seem longer, keep learning new things.

Shared Time: Why Age Matters Less

“But wait,” you might object, “don’t we need age to define roles? Without clear age distinctions, how would we structure society, workplaces, or even families?”

Some say age gaps enforce mentorship, hierarchy, or even protect against ageism’s stereotypes. On the contrary, Star Trek’s USS Enterprise thrived on skill, not age. Kirk and Spock were peers despite their age gap. Age matters less when roles emerge with experience; ageism doesn’t dictate them. What if we stopped letting the year of our birth define our roles? Wouldn’t we connect more deeply?

The groups of people you work with represent a situation where age matters less. As you mature, you realize you want to assemble a crew with diverse skills. Age matters less compared to specialization. As your team tackles projects, you build trust, respect, and cohesion. You begin to view each other as peers, regardless of age. Moreover, besides Star Trek, you see this in ensemble casts in TV series like Gilligan’s Island, M*A*S*H, and Seinfeld. Do you know the ages of the characters in those shows? Does it matter?

Age gaps in youth are as wide as the Grand Canyon—until they’re not. Personal identity evolves over time. As you grow old, your age becomes less a part of who you are. Age matters less as shared time bridges differences, both mathematically and experientially. We connect through stories, skills, and shared dreams—not age. At my last reunion, I bonded with other classes over common memories. Age didn’t matter. Shared time did.

Youth divides by age; wisdom unites by time. Perhaps this is what T.S. Eliot glimpsed in Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton when he wrote, “Only through time, time is conquered.” The poet understood what we come to learn: time itself transcends the mere counting of years.

So, the next time you meet someone from your past, remember: what matters isn’t the years between you, but the stories you share. Why not build bridges across generations today?

Age matters less.

When you’re astute enough to see what really counts.