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Our society is so fixated on youth that many of us perceive our aging process as progressive devaluation.
We no longer look youthful, which is almost synonymous with "no longer beautiful", because the propagated ideal calls for no wrinkles.
When it comes to cutting back and streamlining working life, it is often the older people who companies part with first if the social plan allows.
If not, lure them with the famous "golden handshake" (or one made of brass).
And the advertising industry ignored us for a long time as "not relevant" as soon as we passed the age of 49.
There are reasons for all of this, but you don't have to take them too seriously: They are often based on errors and misperceptions.
The thing about beauty is always subjective and lies in the eye of the beholder.
Following the criteria of the influencer and Heidi Klum world, very few of us still win prizes.
But seriously: Who would also want to be valued only for being able to pose without creases, shiny, brazenly showing teeth or at least to be able to walk straight ahead?
With all due respect, we've done a lot more to earn our wrinkles.
It looks different when it comes to our material worth.
The fairy tale of the advertising-relevant target group, who are particularly interesting as consumers, was once circulated by the marketing of a private broadcaster: It is simply a lie.
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The advertising space sellers simply invented an allegedly advertising-relevant target group, because that was exactly the one that this flat-screen broadcaster was able to reach particularly well in its early days.
It started at the age of 14 (because it was only from then on that people assumed the level of pocket money relevant for advertising) and stopped at 49 because only very few older people did the roaring program of fake afternoon talk, soap operas and shrill cheap show formats.
In the meantime, the advertising fairy tale has been disenchanted and the age limit has been moved up by around ten years.
Over the age of 60, consumption then apparently really declines, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that many citizens no longer have so fat when they retire: From 60 plus there is a prosperity gap in this country that is deeply shameful.
At 50 plus it's completely different.
More than half of consumer spending in this country is made by people over the age of 50: we are the ones who really spend money, not the young!
It's not just because there are so many of us.
We also clearly have more money to spend than we did in our younger years.
I am a good example myself.
When I was young, there was a lack of money everywhere.
For the first 20 years after leaving my parents' house, I was definitely completely irrelevant to advertising: I worked for little money, the children kept coming, moving house again and again, at 42 then the madness of a completely underfunded house purchase with growing demands of the adolescents at the same time: It ate us up the hair from the head.
The standard of living from the money flow was normal in adolescence and far beyond.
What came in went out again promptly.
We opened our first savings account a year after the children left the house.
At that point in time, the hut was finally rescheduled and the monthly burden sank noticeably.
The closer we got to 50, the better we felt materially - of course also because I earned significantly better at 50 than at 35. (Who knows whether today's 35-year-olds will still experience that.)
The queasy feeling in work life: Am I getting weaker?
Do you know the story?
Most of us feel like this or something similar.
Materially, I perceived the 50 as a time of growing possibilities.
Suddenly there were vacations that were unthinkable in the past.
For larger purchases, aesthetic reasons now counted more than financial ones.
We have fed industries with money that we would never have seen before 50.
Meanwhile, a slightly queasy feeling grew in work life.
More and more often I heard from people around me that someone my age had lost their job and was being sorted out.
In the media I read about a labor shortage and how valuable senior citizens are in the company.
Often you could break it down to the line: The exploitable gets weaker, but can compensate for it through experience.
Life department
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Did I get weaker?
Could I keep up?
And for how long?
The subject came up more and more frequently over the years when we spoke "among men".
At some point a friend said: “We are scrap iron for them.
They only drag us along because they have to. "
But that is actually only a subjective truth.
As a young man, I worked in the manufacturing industry for several years, real bone jobs.
When I think back to it and feel what my back tells me in the morning, then I know: Yes, that applies to scrap iron.
There are numerous jobs that at 50 plus you not only can no longer do at some point, but you shouldn't have to do it any more.
Office dwellers often do not notice this because different standards apply to them: at the age of 50 they are often not only much fitter than their crafting friends, but even than their younger colleagues.
We have known this for a long time, it has been proven by studies countless times: On a statistical average, employees reach the zenith of their highest efficiency at 50 years of age.
At no point in time are they more productive, even at the age of 60 they easily outshine the average 25-year-old.
Just, see above, not in all disciplines.
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It's like scrap iron.
One kilogram is currently around 28 cents at Schrotti.
It's not worth it for anyone.
But iron is a crude, rust-prone material.
It looks better with aluminum (2.25 euros), with copper (6.92 euros), hard metal (14.20 euros) and especially with electronic waste (66 euros per kilogram).
So it depends on what you have to sell.
Just like in life.
Few of us sell iron, we've learned a lot over time.
Realistically speaking, we are usually worth far more today than we are said to be.
Being aware of this from time to time is not only good for self-confidence.
