Your Best Age Isn't a Number; It's the State You're In Right Now
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Recently, I've received many private messages from Juejin friends. You not only expressed concern for me but also talked about the difficulties and setbacks you're encountering at work. Based on my own experiences, I had some simple exchanges with everyone and shared a few suggestions. Calling it "guidance" would be a bit shameless, haha; it's more about mutual communication and inspiration.
Thank you all very much for your concern, and thanks to the Juejin platform for letting me feel the kindness and warmth from strangers. For those who don't know the context, you can read the article I wrote earlier: People can't choose how long they live, but they can choose how to live.
The topic I want to share today still comes from my recent state and reflections.
Yesterday, while having dinner with a friend, our chat accidentally touched on a very resonant question:
In a person's life, which age is truly the best?
Some say twenty is best—young, energetic, and full of opportunities. Some miss their thirties, feeling that's when you have experience without too many signs of aging. Others, after reaching forty or fifty, start looking back frequently, feeling that the best phase of life has already passed.
Personally, I believe there is no universally applicable "best age" in life. Age is just a mark left by time; what truly determines a person's quality of life is the state they are in right now.
Being Young Doesn't Mean Being in Your Best State
Youth certainly has its advantages. Physical recovery is fast, the cost of trial and error is relatively low, and there are still many opportunities to start over.
But youth can also mean confusion, anxiety, and a lack of choices. A person in their twenties might be pushed along daily by work and the future; although physically young, they may already be mentally exhausted. They worry about starting too late, fear their peers are moving too fast, or might doubt their ability to live a good life after a single failure.
As one grows older, physical strength changes, and life responsibilities increase. There are elders to care for, children to raise, and various real-world pressures at work. Yet at the same time, a person might understand themselves better than when they were young, knowing what is worth fighting for and what no longer needs to be forced.
So, being young doesn't equal being in a good state, and growing older doesn't mean life can only go downhill.
At the same age of thirty, one person is consumed by comparison and anxiety, while another has learned to live at their own pace. At fifty, one person feels life is already set in stone, while another starts exercising and learning anew, willing to engage with new things.
Age can tell us how many years we've walked, but it cannot answer how we are living now.
A truly good state isn't about looking young on the outside, nor is it about being perpetually energetic and emotionally stable. Everyone gets tired, hits low points, and loses direction at certain stages. A good state is knowing what you are going through, being able to stop when tired, being willing to adjust when the direction is wrong, and not rushing to negate your entire life when facing problems.
Sometimes, a person's best state isn't about shining brightly, but about having a less chaotic inner world. They might still have pressure, and life might not be perfect, but they know which things to take seriously, which relationships to cherish, and are finally willing to let go of standards that don't belong to them.
Much Age Anxiety Comes from Other People's Timelines
Why do people fear growing older?
Often, what we fear isn't aging itself, but the worry that we haven't accomplished what others think we should have by a certain age.
At twenty-five, you should have found your direction; at thirty, your career should be stable; by a certain stage, you should be married, own a house, and have savings. It's as if life is a uniform progress chart, and anyone who doesn't arrive on time is lagging behind.
But everyone's starting point, family background, and experiences are different. Some find their direction early, while others only understand what truly suits them after many detours. Some have smooth sailing when young but must start over midway. Others seem ordinary in the first half of life but gradually build the life they want after middle age.
If you constantly compare your everyday reality to the most glamorous parts of others' lives, it's hard to feel satisfied with the present.
Seeing someone get promoted makes you feel your job is worthless. Seeing someone marry and have children makes you worry your life is incomplete. Seeing someone younger achieve success makes you doubt if opportunities are running out.
But this kind of comparison rarely changes life; it mostly just creates anxiety.
Growing older can actually bring a kind of ability: we gradually know what we can do and slowly see what we truly need. But if we are constantly rushed by other people's timelines, this clarity gets drowned out by anxiety.
A person starts to mature not because they finally caught up with everyone else, but because they no longer need to catch up with others to prove their life isn't a failure.
The Best State Is Slowly Taking Life Back
During my time in the hospital, I gained a more concrete feeling about the word "state."
Before, when we said someone was in a good state, we often thought of being energetic, having smooth work, and positive emotions—as if only being at life's peak counts as living well.
But when a person goes through illness, accidents, and low points, they can't demand to immediately recover to how they were before. The body needs time, and emotions need time too. The truly good state at this stage isn't pretending nothing happened, but acknowledging your changes while gradually taking life back, bit by bit.
Being able to eat and sleep normally, go out for a walk, re-engage with work, and sit down calmly to chat with parents—these things I didn't pay much attention to before, I now know how precious they are after experiencing an accident.
The best state also doesn't mean having no worries from then on.
After leaving the hospital, I still get anxious about work and am still affected by life's trivial matters. An accident doesn't suddenly make a person broad-minded, nor does it make all problems disappear automatically. But it does remind me that health shouldn't always be ranked behind work, and truly important people shouldn't always be left for "later."
Life rarely waits until everything is perfectly ready before officially starting.
We always think we'll take care of our health, spend time with family, and do what we truly want after work stabilizes, income increases, or the children grow up. But after one problem is solved, new ones will still appear. If we keep waiting for the most suitable age or the most ideal conditions, we might never wait for the day to start living.
A good state is actually hidden in very ordinary choices.
Getting a check-up promptly when feeling unwell, giving yourself some rest when tired; no longer repeatedly blaming yourself for an unchangeable past, and not making hasty decisions that don't suit you just because you're temporarily behind. Taking a meal or a night's sleep seriously, making time to accompany parents, and doing well the things right in front of you.
These changes won't make life perfect immediately, but they will make us feel again that life is still in our own hands.
Life has no universally recognized golden age, nor is any stage destined to be bleak. At twenty, you have the chance to try again; at forty, you can also change direction. At sixty, you may not be able to go back to the past, but you can still decide how to spend today.
A person's best time isn't necessarily when they are youngest or most successful.
It might be when, after experiencing some things, they finally learn to take care of their body, are no longer rushed by others' progress, and are willing to give time to the people who truly matter. Life isn't easy, but the heart is no longer so panicked. The future still holds unknowns, but there's still a willingness to live today earnestly.
Age is just the distance life has traveled forward; state is the answer we give to life.
So, there's no need to keep looking back for a so-called best age.
When you can accept yourself at this moment, take care of your body, cherish the people around you, still have a little expectation for tomorrow, and are willing to start taking action today—then right now is the best age you can possibly have.