WHY DO WE ALL PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY AGE DIFFERENTLY?

IS IT GENETICALLY DETERMINED? OR DOES SOME OTHER FACTORS ALSO PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE? Part 1

  “Man fools himself; he prays for a long life, and he fears of old age.” – Chinese Proverb.

One of the main laws of nature is that every living creature is programmed to be born, mature, produce, get old and die - either by natural causes or with diseases and accidents. This is an unavoidable fate for all of us.

When we start to get old, many of our bodily and organ functions start to regress and malfunction. Among all these age-related malfunctions, more than anything else, we desire to have a sharp mind and maintain this ability to the very end of our life.

Our genetic makeup (the genes we acquired from our parents) play a key role in the way we are, and how we are going to be. However, environmental factors and our chosen lifestyle, dietary habits, sedentary living, unhealthy habits (overeating, drinking, cigarettes smoking, substance abuse), and preventative health care measures also play major roles.

In addition, I believe from my own personal life experience that our emotions and personality traits also play significant roles in our bodily functions, mental acuity, and aging.

I am a very emotional person. I know for sure how my emotions and personality traits adversely affect to use my critical thinking ability to answer questions. For example, I am a poor exam taker. Exams put undue pressure on me. I become panicky and anxious. I cannot think straight. I answer all the questions intuitively. I must study extremely hard and depend only on my memorized and crystallized knowledge to pass an exam. Otherwise, I fail.

I find solace in reading about historical scientists who have failed to pass their exams. My favorite scientist is a village boy who was ordained to become a parish priest Gregor Mendel. Mendel was a man of few words with a sharp intelligence and an incise power of observation. He has had no interest in spiritual life, he wanted to become a schoolteacher. In 1850 he took the exam to become a teacher in Brno and failed. Bruised from his failure, he registered to the University of Vienna to study physics, botany, chemistry, zoology for two years. In 1853 he has decided to take certifying teacher exam again. Fortunately, his second attempt also failed.

How lucky we are that Mendel failed to become a teacher. Otherwise, we would have had an ordinary schoolteacher, instead of a brilliant scientist who had deciphered the secrets of heredity in 1864, after experimental studies for eight years on pea plants. With his discovery of corpuscles or units of heredity, presently known as genes, and the dominant and recessive traits in heredity. Mendel is considered by many as the father of heredity.

Mendel’s example shows us how insufficient an exam and examiners could be, not seeing a hidden genius, giving a passing grade, and selecting the best candidate for a job.

I think, to better understand the subject matter we are discussing, we must also refresh our memory and knowledge about emotions, feelings, moods, personality traits and intelligence. These will be discussed in upcoming second part of this article.