The older I get, the less tolerant I am of change

I’m perfectly happy where I am, and that’s what getting older does to you

I’m turning thirty on September 4th. And I couldn’t be happier to be where I am in life right now.

I haven’t always been this content. Following my graduation, I spent about three and a half years bouncing around countries, apartments, houses, jobs, identities, you name it. During my university days, I tried on several identities to see which one fit best.

I’ve suffered from addictions to benzodiazapines. I’ve smoked my brains out and tried on the hippie identity. Didn’t work. I like to shower too much. Not only that, but I totally saw through the facade of the hippie culture.

I hung out with people from different religions. I’ve participated in their rituals. Just to see whether they worked for me. They didn’t, but I am so happy to have acquired the knowledge of other people’s beliefs. Even if I am unable to see myself in their religion, I can identify the similarities with my own beliefs about the world.

I’ve spent copious amounts of time with the atheist Scandinavians. Their worldview is too innocent, simple, and dare I say cold for me. Their standard of living is among the highest in the world. Little do most of them know how privileged they are.

I once met a Norwegian girl here in Amman. I told her, drunkingly, that we Americans are willing to die in the streets during a protest for half of what they have. She looked at me, stunned in silence, not knowing how to reply.

Perhaps that’s what lack of struggle and adversity gets you. A boring life without wonder about the purpose of it all.

I’ve been a hardcore woke leftist. Only because no other worldview is tolerated while you are a university student. You don’t know how brainwashed you are when you are only cognizant of one way of being. It took conscious efforts following my graduation, and being situated among very different people, to realize that there are no clear answers to life’s biggest woes.

Oddly enough, I think I figured myself out for the most part during my teen years. 2007–2009 was my peak, intellectually speaking. I was openminded, though not so much I didn’t form contrary opinions to mainstream society. As if I cared about mainstream society. I listened to metal and had an attitude to match it. I neglected metal in favor of other genres for several years. Now I’m back to listening to metal and enjoying it without care whether it makes me look juvenile or not.

I’m also no longer a socialist. I identified as a social democrat for many years. Communism and similar philosophies are abound in universities. Wait until you enter the real world. I no longer wish to feel dependent on society to have my back. I want to earn my own money in a system that hopefully doesn’t artificially deflate wages for the CEO’s benefit (I understand this is common in hypercapitalism, and that is wrong).

The only people I will allow myself to depend on are family and my religious community. Those are my interests. My interests are not humanism. A sad fact of reality is we are far too divided by culture, religions, class and so on to see eye to eye with everyone in humanity. Therefore, while I can sympathize with different people, I know I am limited in my capacity to form a friendship with everyone, and I am comfortable with that.

I am a Christian. Maybe this is a product of how I grew up. Maybe this is how i consciously feel about the world. All I know is, I’m happy with that label.

I’m boringly moderate politically. I don’t feel the urge anymore to challenge everyone from a place of insecurity. I do like to engage with others intellectually and figure out why they are the way they are, but I don’t feel threatened by anyone. I like to call myself levelheaded.

Is it an age thing? Hormones go all over the place until you reach your late twenties, I think. I was comfortable schlepping myself all around countries and cities. Now that I’m married, I just want one or two places where I establish my nest. I have one already, here in Amman, Jordan. Once my husband and I move to America, I think of the place we move to being the place we die in sixty years from now.

Comfort is not something I’ve readily known. I’ve sought out stressful situations, probably because I have only known distruption. Not anymore. I’m becoming a simple person, and I am happy.

There’s a saying that if you’re young and not a liberal, you have no heart, but if you’re old and still a liberal, you have no brain. I guess that’s a little patronizing, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s true for me. I don’t want change. Change implies getting accustomed to new surroundings, ideas, and so on. It means a shift of how I see my own identity as it relates to the world. I just want to coast.

I’m happy to have had those difficult experiences. But I’m even happier knowing I’ve reached the ‘end’ of it. I have a personality that adjusts to change quite well, but somehow I feel I’ve reached the finish line. And I’m content. No need to switch courses. If I were to, it would be quite a traumatizing experience.

Have you felt this way, as you’ve aged?

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