At what age do you consider someone truly experienced in general-life terms?
 

I say general terms because obviously we all have our unique backgrounds and experiences that are more personal to us - e.g., as a person of colour who knows what racial bias feels like, much more-so than a white person, however old; a person with an invisible condition like misophonia who has to self-advocate just to get anything close to a loosely-corresponding diagnosis and some sort of treatment; a 17-year-old orphan-girl who’s experienced more grief than some people will in a lifetime. Anything. Anything that you’re naturally going to be far more experienced in than the average person (whether it’s by route of self-advocacy or just direct experience, just ones that are more personal/possibly niche). But at what point do you consider someone generally experienced in general life terms (working, paying bills/a mortgage, raising kids, etc., etc.) that do tend to increase in amount with age, no matter how intellectually seasoned you are from jump/perceiving the timeless intuitive undercurrents of life from a young age?

I say all I say in low-key waffle up there to account for intellectual nuance and draw the line between personal, unique experience (e.g., racial bias, cultural/ethnic background, niche medical conditions) and broader, archetypal life-experience (work, parenting, paying taxes, ageing, etc.). So, whether you’re an intuitive INFJ with the reading-capacity of people twice your age and more insight into the metaphysical undercurrents of life to boot but very little in the way of “I’m paying £80 more in taxes this year while I juggle looking after my poor 1-year-old” (who’s probably just adorable) or someone who’s coasted through life not particularly intelligent or “deep” but has walked the circle of broad experience with bills, kids and beef with HR a trillion times, this thread is calling both types of people, and everyone in-between. Both types of experience are incredibly valuable but not interchangeable.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s a set age where someone suddenly becomes “life experienced.” Some people get thrown into the deep end early—losing parents, raising siblings, working full time as teenagers—while others float through their 20s without much real pressure. But if we’re talking general life stuff like bills, rent/mortgage, juggling work, relationships, and maybe raising kids, I’d say people usually start gaining that kind of experience properly in their late 20s to mid-30s.

That’s when life tends to stop playing on easy mode (if it ever was), and responsibilities stack up. But even then, it’s not about age as much as it is what you’ve had to handle. Some 50-year-olds haven’t had to face half the sh*t a 25-year-old might’ve gone through. So yeah—age helps, but it’s not the whole story. Life experience is more about what’s hit you and how you’ve had to respond.