I think of myself as young. Not by the arithmetic of years, but by the internal certainty that youth is a room I never stepped out of.
I enjoy the company of people in their twenties and thirties; their looseness, their energy, their unbroken faith in possibility. I believe I blend into that crowd, as if my mind has quietly refused each passing decade. But then life arranges a moment that refuses soft focus.
Mine came on a recent evening in Mumbai, at Kasauti (Hindi for Test or Trial), the annual celebration day of The Akhaada, my gym.
The event was held on the turf of a college ground. I had eaten breakfast early, skipped lunch, and downed some electrolytes and protein bars. My head felt clear. My body felt ready. The alpha in me wanted a medal; nothing less.
I had been assigned to a team event, but I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want reality. I wanted the version of myself I carried in memory. So I pleaded to be allowed to compete one-on-one, with serious contenders. Here, I found my 50-something self surrounded by people at least a decade younger, each looking like the best version of themselves.
Well, I told myself, age is just a number. On plenty of mornings, I’ve deadlifted as much, if not more, than men this age. I’ve rebuilt myself brick by brick these past few years. Surely that counts for something.
It was now time for deadlifts.
One of my closest competitors pulled 145 kg with ease. On a good day, I could breach that barrier comfortably. It turned out, this wasn’t a good day. This was a humid outdoor evening, and my body wasn’t fully warmed-up. Two powerlifters on either side of me, barely in their 20s, shot me quick glances. Was that concern? Caution. “Not yet. Don’t jump to 150,” I could hear them think. “You just did 130.’
But the beast in me wanted 150. It wanted the story. I asked for the plates. Stepped up. Gripped the bar. And… nothing. No movement. Not even a negotiation. Just a stubborn stillness, as if the bar were welded to the earth.
In that moment, I knew something I didn’t want to know. The body keeps its own ledger.
It updates itself without consulting the mind.
I wasn’t done here. The high-intensity interval training or HIIT round came next; the endurance test. A chance to reclaim some pride. Even the willpower that always stands with me seemed to fade. My head said, “Run. Cross the line. Get to the next task faster”.
My heart said, “Conserve. You’ll need strength for the weights”. There were no right answers. I had been vanquished, not so much by my competitors in this arena, as by time.
The evening continued, competitions blurring into each other. Applause lifted and fell. The compere introduced an 80-year-old woman who had competed the previous year. Looking at her, I saw a mission so different from mine. She was strong, steady, unafraid. But that’s because she recognised the point of the arc at which she stood; she was no longer competing with an earlier self; she was aiming just to be here.
She was carrying far less than she once must have. Her strength was real, but it was also the remnant of an older strength; an echo. Even that hurt. And a quiet thought occurred: That will be me one day.
I hope to someday feel, not dread, not in sorrow, but simply recognition of this truth; as she does.
Later that night, once the adrenaline had burned itself out, something softened in me. Age is a messenger. It offers calibration, and a certain emotional economy. It offers relief from the exhausting business of pretending one is invincible.
It offers peace.
I am not 25. I am not even 40. But I’m still here; trying, failing, learning, lifting, running, recalibrating. I am still capable of surprise, and of effort. Still capable of joy.
And that was the quiet wisdom the body delivered on a humid Mumbai evening: Wisdom isn’t merely the presence of knowledge. It is also the absence of illusion.
(Charles Assisi is co-founder of Founding Fuel. He can be reached on assisi@foundingfuel.com. The views expressed are personal)
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