You can get more… satisfaction

If you try, if you try, if try, if you try

Last week, Sir Mick Jagger turned 80. He looked slay* in his bottle green suit, silk polka dot shirt and grey trainers. His footwear was not only a stylish choice (love smart with casual) but appropriate given in any one of his stage performances, he dances the equivalent of eight to 12 miles. Impressive, not simply in light of his years but because pro-footballers, on average, only run six during a match.

I met Mick 20-odd years ago at the BAFTAs’ after-party at the Café Royal. It was a time when phone signals could be elusive - as I walked to a balcony, waving my mobile about to no avail, I noticed a slim guy next to me had just come off a call. Gently (cheekily) I elbowed him, saying, ‘How come you got so lucky?’.

It was only as he turned towards me that I realised who he was. At that moment, I decided it would be more embarrassing to scream, ‘Ooh, it’s you,’ so I just carried on chatting, as did he. After a while, he said he had to remember where he was sitting, so we both peered over the balcony to the level below to pinpoint his fellow guests. My friends couldn’t believe their eyes. ‘Yeah, me and Mick go back a long way,’ I announced. (All of five minutes).

Ironically, a young Jagger once stated, ‘I’d rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when I’m 45.’ Now, I guess he’d rather be singing Satisfaction at 85 than be dead. He also said he was going to quit when he hit 33. I’m glad he didn’t.

However, 33 happens to be an interesting choice of age to draw a line in the sand because it was long thought this was when our personalities become pretty much fixed. That we’re all grown up and we are who we are. That leopards don’t change their silk polka dots.

But research by René Mõttus, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, shows on the contrary, during our lives our personalities are malleable and fluid. So much so, by the time we reach our 70s and 80s, they’ve undergone significant transformation. In fact, it turns out you can actively train-in some changes if you try… and you try…you get the picture.

Instead of couching ageing in terms of it’s-all-downhill-from-here, ‘personality maturation’ as it’s called, can have some wonderful advantages. For instance, studies show as we age, we have a tendency to become more altruistic, more conscientious and less neurotic, as well as developing a better sense of humour - the idea that older people are universally grumps-ville is a stereotype that needs rethinking. 

As Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert said in his TED talk on personality, ‘Human beings are works in progress who mistakenly think they’re finished…Hint: that’s not the case.’

I think I've made some headway (even though I'm as super-anxious as I always was). For instance, when I was young I was painfully shy. Now, I’m something of a show-off, especially on the dance floor. I also think I’m slowly becoming more optimistic. For instance, when I consider the benefits of ageing, here's ten straight off:

1 FOMO becomes JOMO (joy of missing out). Perhaps you prefer being at home with a G&T watching Gogglebox than at an industry awards in a ballroom full of sequinned frocks. And that’s ok. 

2 If a scammer rings and says he has all your passwords, you can reply, ‘Thank goodness for that, what are they?’. 

3 …although when Magic plays Bohemian Rhapsody, you can remember every single word. 

4 In a hijack situation, you’ll probably be released first.

5 When you announce you’d love to get hold of some good grass, eavesdroppers assume you’re talking about your lawn. 

6 Finally, people start to take your hypochondria seriously. 

7 You can admit you’re having Botox, not to banish laughter lines, but to soften your WTF lines, which are way, way deeper. 

8 While you’re only young once, there’s no rule to say you can’t be immature for the rest of your life. 

9 Given people tend to have such limited expectations of age, if you learn to do something a bit out-there, like the splits or lindy hop, you will blow people’s minds. 

10 You can now understand what David Bowie meant when he said, ‘Ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.’ Ch ch ch ch changes indeed.

*slay can now mean amazing/cool/great/fashionable…apparently.