How Old Do You Have to Be to Have “Senior” Moments?

They’re not just for seniors anymore.

I remember elderly relatives and even my own parents lamenting a lapse in memory or some awkward slip in their behavior as having a “Senior” moment. (My mother once put the coffee pot in the refrigerator) It was a tragically funny attempt at making light of the expected diminishing state of being that might occur as we age.

Back in the days before dementia and Alzheimer’s were clearly identified medical conditions of the brain, “senility” and “senior moments” were defining elements of any strange behavior that might be exhibited by older folks. Of course, in those days “older” was a catch-all phrase for anyone over fifty. These days I’m a firm believer that “50 is the new 30.”

Still, society was able to pigeonhole people and behaviors in ways that made it easy to overlook anything that wasn’t readily fixable or easy to explain away.

In the world of the twenty-first century, there has been a clear uptick in the sensory input that invades our world and our brains. We no longer have just the immediate world of our own day to day lives to contend with, we now are bombarded with the minutia of the lives of everyone we know and many people we do not know — all through a few clicks on a keyboard.

Little wonder we can find ourselves overwhelmed with so many details of insignificant or limited relevance — and it has taken a toll on us.

That toll is what I attribute to more and more evidence of “senior” moments in those of us who don’t qualify for the term under its previous description of elderly mis-steps.

I’ve stumbled across a phrase recently that I never heard before — “Hustle Culture.”

There may be several definitions of what this phrase means, but to me this describes the continuing chaos and sensory overload that seems to have taken over everyone’s life. We have to move faster and faster just to remain in place. One job isn’t enough anymore. We are all juggling our side hustle in an effort to gain traction in a fast paced world.

Too much to do, too much to think about, too much (useless) information, too much to react to in too little time, too much responsibility that goes on for 24 hours a day if we let it, too many demands . . .

Too little time to absorb it all, too little useful information to process everything accurately, too many people expecting a response or an action right now . . .

Does all this extraneous input have anything to do with an increasing level of those “senior” moments — those times when our actions don’t necessarily align with the situation we face?

I definitely think so.

We may need to rethink and expand the whole concept of “senior” moments.

They’re not just for seniors anymore.

They’re for you, and for me. And for anyone else out there that finds the good, bad, necessary and outright useless input from the world taking over their brains — oftentimes interfering with the ability to process and react in a sensible and rational manner.

I won’t even pretend to have a solution to this mayhem. We have entered the world of the twenty-first century and there is no turning back the clock or dialing back on the speed.

Maybe all we can hope for is a chance to be a little more tolerant of ourselves and those around us. And, maybe we need to be more aware of what should really be important in our lives.

A few less social media sites could probably benefit us all. Fewer responses to survey questions coming at us from everyone we interact with each day couldn’t hurt (I doubt they use that information for anything useful anyway).

Less gratuitous screen time just for the purpose of killing time.

There are some great lyrics to the song “Out of the Frying Pan” by the singer Meatloaf (yeah, okay, I’m dating myself a bit) that express this very well:

“Come on!

Come on!

And there’ll be no turning back.

You were only killing time and it will kill you right back.”

— Meatloaf

It may be time to focus less on those things that kill time and distract our attention and more on those things that expand our horizons and keep us from having those “senior” moments — at least until our chronological age catches up with us and we can safely put the blame on our age where it belongs.

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