The Right Age to Marry

“Age is a matter of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
– Mark Twain

They say age is just a number. But is it?
Turns out, for most people, age is not just any number, but a very important number, at that.
How so?

So tell me, how many of your friends (or you, for that matter) had a timeline for life in mind?
You know what I mean – I’ll get married by 26, have 2 kids – the first kid one by the time I’m 30, the second one by 32, earn XXX amount by 40, blah blah. You get the drift.

Well, I never got this. For starters, life doesn’t always turn out the way we want it to. At least mine hasn’t. Planning only takes you so far. If it all pans out, great! If it doesn’t, you end up feeling sorry as you have clearly ‘failed‘.
(Come on – we all remember Rachel’s disappointment on her 30th birthday, don’t we?)
Why put yourself through such an ordeal in the first place?

A number only has the meaning you attach to it. It can mean nothing else. Why don’t we all just stop attaching negative meanings to 29, 30, or 40?
Let’s stop living life by the numbers.
Let’s stop feeling like failures if we don’t achieve XYZ by a certain age.
And let’s start feeling young at heart, ‘coz isn’t that all that matters?

Who knows when you will meet the right person? Who can predict?
What if you miss out on the right person by saying yes to the wrong one a year earlier?

“Me? I’d rather ‘waste’ 3 years now and wait for the right person to come along, than ‘save’ 3 years now and spend the next 50 years with the wrong person”

Come to think of it – we take months to decide on our specialization in high school, our courses in college, the clothes we will be wearing to X’s wedding, and the car we are going to buy.
But all we take is a few days (hours, for some people) to decide on the person we will be spending the rest of our lives with.

Why so?
Because social diktats say it’s the ‘right age’ to get married.

Let’s stop giving our power to others. And let’s take time to be absolutely sure.
It will happen. All in good time!

Who is going to spend the next 50 years of your life with the person you marry?
You.
Who decides if you are ready?
The society.
Who gives them the power to do it?
You.

Why force yourself to think about marriage just because you are ‘of marriageable age’ and not because you are mentally ready? Why force ourselves to be ready at all?

And who can say that a person who gets married at say, 30 is any less happier than someone who gets married at 26? Wouldn’t you rather be happily unmarried at 30 than miserably married at 26? I know I would.

As I always say, there are a million things you can do while still single in your youth that you cannot do if you get married early. While there’s nothing you miss out on if you marry a little late – you will still do the same things with your spouse.

Let yourself be the judge of what’s the right age for you.
Let ‘not ready’ be a good enough reason.

Marry for the right reasons. Marry for love. Marry for security. Marry coz you are ready. Marry ‘coz you found the right person. Marry ‘coz you want to.
And not ‘coz you are a certain age.

Until then? Go for that solo trip. Write that book you’ve always wanted to write. Learn that musical instrument. Take that adventure trip with your friends. Start that business venture. Try bungee jumping. Learn a new cuisine. Give gardening a shot. Learn a foreign language. Know yourself.

Marriage can wait. And will. Life doesn’t need to.

#FoodForThought #FeelYoung