My lying brain
In a few weeks I turn 68. These days I’m only too aware of how this 68 year old body doesn’t always meet my expectations. Of course, it’s my expectations that are at fault, not my body which has actually served me very well these last many decades.
Yesterday while I was walking along Sledge Track I found it harder going than the claimed “easy route”. I needed to watch my footing on the narrow trail by the river where every downhill had an equal but opposite uphill. There were many steps up and down on this route and I needed to take frequent rests.
That’s when my brain started on its “Other 68 year olds can do this easily” lies.
My brain was quite persistent about how inadequate I was, as if it was some kind of a race or endurance test rather than a simple walk for pleasure in the bush.
One thing this 68 year old brain is though is smarter than it used to be. While that critical sub-brain continued its jibes my more logical brain countered: “What 68 year olds exactly? I know a bunch of people my age who couldn’t do this walk at all.”
J1, for example, has had both knees replaced in the last couple of years and a poor sense of balance. This trail is not for her.
Or J2 who had a bad motorcycle accident a few years ago, crushing one leg. She tripped on a flat boardwalk when she visited a couple of years back. This steep in parts, narrow, rough-surfaced trail wouldn’t be for her.
And other friends about my age who have various ailments, who wouldn’t have made it up the first set of steps.
So, who are these other older folks who would walk this trail so much “better”, according to my critical sub-brain, than I was doing?
Well, there’s my friend L, a decade older than me. But then L has regularly gone tramping throughout her life. She’s spent thousands of hours walking trails.
I’ve spent thousands of hours sitting down honing my computer skills.
What is it that encourages this critical sub-brain to speak up, unashamedly, with its commentary on what we’re doing?
I thought about those many many thousands of hours I’ve spent learning about computer stuff.
I get a great sense of pleasure when I do something “clever” on the computer. I think “I love that I can do this.” What I don’t think is “Hey, other 68 year olds can’t do this”, even though that would be at least partly true, in exactly the same way that some folks my age would have an easier time walking a trail in the bush.
I’ve recently been reading writings by Stoics. Funnily enough, just the day before my walk I’d been pondering on these words by Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations (I’ve modernised the translation):
Practise the things you despair of accomplishing. Even the left hand, in effectual for all other things for lack of practice, holds the bridle more vigorously than the right hand; for it has had more practise.
And more:
Think less about what you don’t have and more about what you do have.
One of the things I’ve learned from listening to episodes of The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos is that our brains routinely lie to us.
Thanks to knowing that my brain can lie to me, I understood that the “Other 68 year olds” criticism just needed to be put aside. It wasn’t true. When it came to walking on the Sledge Track, I was just an average person. Some may walk the trail ’better“, others ”worse". And anyway, it wasn’t a competition. There was no better or worse. It was just a way for my critical sub-brain to try to wound me.
“Hah! Your barbs are harmless! Be off with you!”
I enjoyed my walk, and the frequent rests were wonderful opportunities to breathe the fresh air, listen to the birds, look at the greenery.
Abandon your old foolishness like you abandon tattered clothes. You don’t have to think what you thought last year. — The Stoic Emperor


I really love this perspective! I want my brain to learn this too. That it isn’t a competition. I’ve fallen short in so many areas in life, you would think my brain had learned this by now. Yet here I was, planning to run a 3K in better time than 15:30, my fastest time ever by I’m 60.
When I told an acquaintance, he asked “And how old where you when you got your record?”. I was 21… 21…60. Not the same. I will try to keep the goal, but not get so critical of myself if I don’t reach it. And I want to read about the Stoic philosophy too, when my brain works better. 🧠

@odd I guess what I'm slowly learning (and haven't got there yet) is to critique what my brain's telling me rather than just accepting it. I can do this in other areas of my life: "Hey, where did that extremely racist notion pop into my brain from?!" (the world we live in) but it's so much harder when my brain's telling me I'm not adequate in some way. For me, facts are a good starting point — yes, some folks are better at [x] than I am, but I can also point to folks who aren't. And why are we even comparing?

Yep. My therapist was really trying to tell me this, but I was too busy trying to convince her about the opposite to really absorb it. About racism: I still have things to unlearn, and it’s so convenient to blame someone else for one’s problems, and especially if they stand out in one way or the other, it needn’t even be racism. I believe I’ve come a long way, but I am not there yet, where I can say it is gone, I’m sad to report. Comparing ourselves among ourselves, isn’t wise, and even to how we used to do ourselves is probably not. I could run quicker when I was 21 than when I was 11, and I had no problem with admitting that, but the other way around is a bit more difficult.

@odd Another interesting thing to throw into the mix here: if the Buddhists are right (and if I’m not misunderstanding them) then our thoughts are not really us anyway. They arise like anything else and, in fact, it’s important not to identify ourselves with them.



Good post. I know that even when I look at my parents, who are the same age, there's a huge difference between what they're capable of, and it sort of belies the idea that there's even such a thing as "a typical sixty-something-year-old". Your personal health, and which skills you've chosen to work on and hone over the decades, make a huge difference. It's almost certainly true for younger people as well, so I'll say we shouldn't keep comparing ourselves to others, but try to focus on what would make good achievements for us, from the point we're at now 🙂

Excellent post. As I approach 65 I keep asking myself "Where is this 'old age' that everyone talks about?"

take a look at ashton applewhite's this chair rocks - been reading her for years ... my single summary takeaway
we don’t get old - we do get older.
good post. Thankyou.

@JohnPhilpin Thanks John. Yes, I read her book a couple of years ago and was very persuaded by it. 😀

@jayeless Other writers have made the point that for example, (western) 16 year olds are all generally pretty much alike really. They have 16 years of experience of the world largely taken up with schooling. OTOH older people have all different kinds of life experience. We diverge as we get older. Which is why it's frustrating that forms list age groups like 15-20, 20-30 etc and then a homogeneous 65+, as if a 65 year old is comparable to a 95 year old who has an additional 30 years of life experience.

@jayeless And yup. I'm trying to get my brain to stop trying to randomly pop comparisons into my head. 😆

@dave Seems obvious once it's pointed out. I learned it from I think Ashton Applewhite's book.

10 years ago, somewhere West of Pamplona on the Camino, I fell into conversation with an older French gentleman as we walked along the trail. I discovered he was almost 80, walking alone, was intent on reaching Santiago, which was still about 650km away.
When I remarked on his fitness, he told me that he loved doing long walks in the Winter and running races in the Summer. Running? I asked. Yes, he replied. And also he said, “I always win”. Really? I asked. Yes, he replied. “I always win because I’m the only one in my age category”
I loved our conversation.
I didn’t see him again after that day, but I think of him often, especially when my brain is lying to me that I can’t do something or other.