I recently saw a celebrity discussing “Cancel Culture” and how toxic the lack of discourse in our society has become.

One of the anchors interviewing her made the comment that it seems our culture is very “immature,” that many people lack the ability to think critically and act wisely.

I see evidence of this on social media every day. There are thirty-, forty-, even fifty-year-old women dancing to ridiculous “songs” or lip-syncing to dumb jokes or silly scenarios in an effort to gain attention.

Most women on television, from the star being interviewed to the interviewer herself, come across as hypocritical, lambasting the immaturity of society while desperately seeking to hold on to their youth, via plastic surgery, a juvenile wardrobe, or their overall behavior.

I’m a firm believer in living your life how you want, but I’m also convinced our society has fallen into a thirst trap known as “youth obsession.”

We are convinced that staying young will keep us alive forever, help us remain relevant, and force people to pay attention to us. As if none of us wants to lose the limelight, we are all trying to hold onto what we once had.

But there is a difference between wanting to be healthy and gain vitality and wanting to stay a young woman forever.

One thing we all have in common: None of us is getting out of here alive. You have a 1 in 1 chance of dying. It happens to all of us.

And we’re all moving towards that direction. In other words, with every breath you take, you’re one step closer to not taking another one.

That might sound macabre, and I certainly don’t mean to be depressing. But I’m saddened by this crazy obsession we have with our young people.

I think our obsession with youth started when we began believing that children should have better tangible items than adults.

For example, I can certainly remember friends of mine who had brand new cars, for instance, while their parents drove “hoopties.” And it grew even worse when we started thinking it was the best idea to hold off on getting married or starting a “real life” until we were financially secure. It’s hard to become financially secure on your own when you’re still being helped by your parents at twenty-seven.

We lament that our older men are going after younger women, but why wouldn’t they? We’ve made the young people our idols! Why wouldn’t the younger women enjoy being wooed by an older man? What young girl wants to wait around for their peers to move out of their parents’ basements!

Because we’ve all become obsessed with youth, we’re allowing them to call the shots. Starting with a young guy named Mark Zuckerberg, we’ve handed over our country to a bunch of teenagers whose brains haven’t even fully formed yet.

We’ve allowed these young people to decide what the current culture will be, and we’ve let them dictate our tastes, our thoughts, and our beliefs.

I love my children. I believe with all my heart children are valuable, should be heard, and must be cherished and respected for society to flourish.

I also believe they have a lot of good to say. When the young people threw their support behind Bernie Sanders, I understood exactly why. When they stood up against racism and bigotry and voiced their hurt over the Church, they had my full support. Not to mention that we have a huge problem in our world with our older generations not being able to discern fact from misinformation.

Women, we must wake up. We have to stop trying desperately to hold onto our twenties and thirties. Here’s how:

1. Celebrate the privilege of growing older.

We should view our growing older as a privilege and we should teach our young people that wisdom lies in the hands of the aging. We can do that by celebrating with gratitude each day we are here on earth.

2. Nourish our changing bodies.

We should not become obsessed with remaining young. Instead, we should take great care of our changing bodies, choosing foods and lifestyle patterns that help, not harm, our insides and outside.

3. Get to know someone older than us and encourage our children to as well.

As a society, we must learn to appreciate our older citizens. We need to understand the difference in “cute” old people and “wise” old people–and not treat them as if they’re children.

Our young people need to understand the value of hard work, of delayed gratification, of respecting the wait, and embracing each season of change. We should encourage them to grow and go, leave and cleave, play the game and achieve success the right way.

More than anything, we should teach our young people to love their neighbor through service, kind words and respectful discourse. This is how we move a nation forward, not by going back to our youth, but by moving our society into civility that will calm and master winds of good change.

The ageism cancel culture will end when we stop obsessing over being young and start and loving who we are and what we’ve learned.

In 2020, when I turned forty, I began a new journey of discovering who I really was. Turning forty so fast shocked me out of the “dead slumber” I’d fallen pattern to, of just letting my circumstances and states of emotion lead me, and it caused me to reevaluate everything happening in my life.

Since then, I’ve made more than a few radical changes to my thought life, daily routine, and belief-systems. I’m a new me, but I’m really the old me. I’m who I was meant to be before the world got its claws in me.

Don’t be afraid to examine your life, and don’t be afraid of aging! It’s a privilege not granted to all of us. Take a minute today and really let that sink in.

See you soon,

Toni