Free «When Is the Person Old?» Essay

To begin with, I would like to say that this is rather a controversial question. There is no absolutely right answer to it. While speaking about the age, there are different types of it: psychological, chronological, physical age and, as for me, the most important – the age of the soul. My aim in this essay is to find out what actually influences the age of the person, what type of the age is the most important when talking about being “old”.

First of all, let us find out what the chronological age is and how it is different from the physical one. In many dictionaries we can find different definitions of this phrase, but the main words are “the actual age of the person, number of years, months and days from the date of his/her birth”. To my mind, with the help of chronological age we cannot exactly claim at what age the person is considered to be “old”.

Secondly, the physical age plays a very important role in the age of the person. How the person looks, the health habits are the main factors when defining the physical age. It can be absolutely different from the chronological one, because people themselves either take care of their health and body, the same way staying young for longer period, or just do not pay attention to it.

William Shakespeare gave a very exact and proper definition of a social role in his poem As You Like It:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have there exits, and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts.

The person in his/her life has a range of different roles, and these roles make us feel younger or older. Let us have a look at some of these roles. The most common and widespread are: parents, children and friends. When playing the “father/mother” social role, the person has to be “older” in his behavior and thoughts rather than playing the “child” role. When playing the “child” role, it does not matter what the chronological age of the person is, people can show their weak points, and they can show their immatureness. The role of the “child” brings them the feeling of carelessness, because they know that their parents will protect them in any situation. When talking about the “friend” social role, the behavior and the “age” changes, because friends remind them their crazy youth.

All in all, we can say that depending on the social roles the age of the person “changes”. We cannot change our chronological age, but we can change the physical one. To conclude, I would like to say that the person stays young until his/her soul is young.