Like it or not, age and experience are important.
I was honestly going to keep trolling and posting sarcastic comments for my enjoyment but for some reason I felt compelled to type at least one post in hope that you (tlowr4) would read it and maybe learn something.
When I was 13 I thought I was different. I thought I understood life and its experiences, I thought I understood mortality, and I thought barely anyone could tell me something that I already didn’t know. If they did then they didn’t understand and didn’t realize that I was different. Why did I think that?
Well for starters I was/am (debateable
) quite smart and in fact I skipped a grade at school. I never had any issues learning and I could grasp new concepts easily and could think outside the box. Study for me was reading the formulas or a few dot points on a subject. Throw in the fact that by 13 I have experienced 5 open heart surgeries and a pacemaker. My most recent surgery as 12yrs went from being a 3 day experience installing a pacemaker to the night before being informed they have to cut open the whole chest again and this means split rib cage and months of rehabilitation. No worries I thought, I had already done that at 4 and 9. However unlike previous visits which lasted about a week and half in hospital with no real complications, I got 3 lots of chest infections and spent 9 weeks in and out of hospital on antibiotics so harsh that my veins collapsed every few hours and I was constantly getting new drips inserted all up my wrists on both arms. The pain from this is something I can still remember. Another fun memory was watching the doctor cut open a few layers of my scar on my chest with his scalpel to remove the puss build up under the skin. So at the mighty old age of 13 I had faced the odds and survived not once but a good 5 times, and not just as a baby either, recent and real. For the sake of this I will also add I had yet another open heart at 14, again cut down the middle and splitting all my ribs, only this time I was fortunate enough to get out with no troubles (other than getting my lungs back and healing my ribs). I could sit here and bring up tons of pity stories about being teased because I was smallest / weakest and due to my heart I was useless at any sport etc etc, but I won’t, just know that they exist.
Anyway with my life experiences and a high level of adult interaction throughout my life (it was easier for me to talk to adults than kids) I thought I knew everything about life and its experiences. I had faced death, I had gone into theatre not knowing if I would come back, been very sick and lived to tell the tale. While my friends worried about useless crap (which I can’t even remember) I had other more pressing issues.
So getting to my point... Just like you I think I’m different, Just like you I’ve had my fair share of “issues” and I don’t know about you (I don’t know you enough) but I was smarter than 95% of my peers, not me bragging just outright facts when it came to the tests. So with all that in mind I had to be different right? I understood so much... I had been through so much. How could anyone possible tell me something I didn’t know when it came to that? HOWEVER what I knew back then is nothing compared to what I know now 9 years later, hell even 4yrs ago is a massive difference in life experiences, even 1yr ago. While your talking about Love and I’m talking about life experiences in general, they are both the same. My perception on everything is far better now than 9 yrs ago and I’m willing to bet as I experience more and more in my life that in 10yrs time it would be even greater again. Chances are someone who has already lived for 30 – 35yrs who is half intelligent would have plenty of things to teach me. Maybe not in some areas but I can certainly bet in others. So when you have someone who is 30 – 40’s married with kids for many years talking to you about love, you would be so ignorant to ignore such obvious experience.
This is something I learned a few years back after talking to someone similar to me both in intellect and in health (he had a double lung transplant and has CF) but unlike me he was 56yrs old. The wisdom and experience this man has. The stories, so many things I thought I knew that he just laughed at and proceeded to give me real experienced advice on why I was either wrong, or why I was missing something. Honestly if you don’t listen or value other people’s opinions especially when they have been through similar you’re just being arrogant and you’re hurting your development. As soon as you realize this, you can learn from other people’s mistakes and not need to make so many yourself.
Age isn’t just a number. Sure at 13 I might have been through a lot, but I was still 13, and at 13 there were things I never had to deal with and never needed to understand. Now at 22 I have my own place, I cook, clean, have a job and I STILL HAVE everything else to deal with that I had at 13. So it would be complete ignorance to think I’m not far better off now than 9yrs ago. You will look back at yourself in 9yrs and just laugh. I will look back at myself in another 9yrs and laugh at me now, but at least I know that and I’m always willing to learn and improve and acknowledge that even with everything I’ve been through, some people can still give me really valuable advice.
If you ask a question about love at 13 and someone who has been married for 20yrs answers listen. If you ask a question about love at 13 and someone who has never had a girlfriend but is 35 answers, then maybe take it with a pinch of salt. But certainly don’t go throwing out the first guys advice just because it may go against what you thought is correct, He has been married longer than your alive, he has had a bit of time to figure it out, you can’t understand how importance experience is until you have a little yourself, only by then it can be too late...
Anyway , I know it’s not the most well written posts, I was natural mathematician and quite useless at English and never bothered to properly master it, But hopefully its coherent enough to make sense and I hope even more that you can learn something from it, something I wished I learnt sooner in life.
Don't dismiss other peoples opinions/advice just because it differs from your own, you could actually be wrong.. especially if they have solid experience and facts to back it up.
