Act your Age

Telling people to act their age is a type of insult most Nigerian parents use, an insult I never really quite understood for a while. I know one of the things it probably meant was that person was acting or behaving a lot younger from their usual age, and that is just the parents stylishly reminding them of their age by telling them to act it.

Well, I used to see that saying as an insult, until earlier today when I had to tell someone else the same thing but using different words.

This was someone I've known for more than the past five years, so basically when he was in his early twenties, when we were still seen as kids by the guys in their mid and late twenties.

Well fast forward to five/six years later and I realized that this guy hasn't fully crossed over from when he used to be in his early twenties, to now that he was more than his mid twenties.

At first I was a bit surprised and didn't exactly understand what was going on, until I caught him doing certain things that we normally would do back then, things that almost made me tell him to act his age because he no longer was a kid, but I caught myself.

It was during this experience that I got to realize that sometimes, most people don't realize when it's time for them to move up to the next level in life, they keep on looking at themselves as the same person that they were some years back, not knowing that the rest of the world had moved up and had expected him or her to move up with them, just like I expected my friend to.

_{photo by Luca Bravo}

So when they find out that person hasn't moved up to the next level in life, the saying "Act your age" becomes something you get told often by people who expects nothing less from you. A saying that I no longer see as an insult, but as a reminder that it is time for me move up another step in life.