Q#6: If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

Oh wow. Quite a challenging one this time.

It's quite easy for me.

Really?

I mean, I instantly thought of my answer.

Mhm, and what is it?

The latter.

And why?

Well, if you think about it... when you age, you gain more wisdom and knowledge through the years. So retaining the mind of a thirty-year-old doesn't sound so appealing to me. It sounds like I'll be stuck with the mindset of a thirty-year-old. And while most young people believe they'll be mature enough or whatever when they hit thirty, most of the time, they're sorely mistaken.

That’s kinda true.

At thirty, you're an adult. But you still have a whole lot of years ahead of you—a ton of things to experience and learn. You can be mature, but you won't always be wise enough. You’d still make mistakes. You’d still make wrong choices and make stupid decisions. Imagine being that way for the rest of your life ‘til you reach ninety. Doesn’t sound good at all, right?

Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, if you keep the body of a thirty-year-old, you’d remain young-looking but your mind will age. You’ll gain knowledge and you’ll become wiser through the years, all the while looking your best. Not to mention, as your body ages, you become more prone to illnesses, and while you can live up to ninety, there’s no guarantee that you wouldn’t be spending your last few years suffering from some incurable disease. So keeping your thirty-year-old body, a generally healthier and better-looking one, and having the wisdom of an old man sounds pretty ideal to me.

Wow. I definitely see your point. It makes a lot of sense, and it does sound ideal. But I kind of had an entirely different idea.

What is it?

To me, keeping the mind of a thirty-year-old doesn’t necessarily mean that you would never become wiser for the rest of your life. As you said, as we age, we gain experiences and learn things. But it’s not age-exclusive. Take it this way. Let’s say I’m a fifteen-year-old. And my parents are rich. And they decide not to enroll me to school for two years and just have our whole family traveling the world instead. In the course of two years spent doing nothing but seeing different countries, meeting people of different ethnicity and culture, how many things would I learn? How many experiences would I have? How much wisdom would I gain? Compared to the aver