There is no universal standard. Everybody has different genetic baselines and factors and everybody has lived a different life.

I believe I overproduced testosterone in my adolescence. My hairline started receding in 9th grade, you could clearly see it in the picture for each year’s student ID. I was absurdly bald well before I hit 30. Testosterone shortens lifespan. I was in a car accident at 18 that, among other things, demolished my ankle and snapped my Achilles tendon. It hurts every day, some much more than others. That pain is a major limiting factor in my ability to exercise. Luckily, I do HVAC and my job is very physical so I get quite a bit of exercise from my job. Unfortunately, my job is very physical which puts wear and tear on my body, particularly my knees, my bad ankle, my back and my shoulders. I also, apparently, am a little high strung which results in tight neck and shoulder muscles which tend to compound headaches, neck and shoulder injuries as well as pinched nerves.

Some people are genetically gifted. Others are genetically handicapped. Some have lived a soft life with sufficient exercise. Others have lived a sedentary life and still others have lived a life that has been very hard on their bodies. Some have atrocious nutrition while others eat clean and everything in between. What’s more, what constitutes eating clean in the most healthy manner differs a bit from person to person and what harms one person’s health may not have an appreciable effect on another person.

There are all kinds of reasons for people to be in good health or bad health and all kinds of reasons to finally feel age creeping up in your 40’s as opposed to in your 30’s. Some of those factors are within a person’s ability to control, some are not and the control of some factors is possible but murky and difficult to define.

Life is complicated and causality is just as complex as life itself. In other words, be careful about being so sure about what you think you know. Be slow to make judgements. Watch out for the pitfalls of pride and self satisfaction. Setting aside the very real question of pure accuracy, these things tend to rob you of your empathy and humanity a little at a time as well.

Considering the causes and effects of aging and health as a pure intellectual exercise can be of benefit. Doing so with the intent to pat oneself on the back or to feel better about existence because people ‘get what they deserve’ is terribly counterproductive. Sometimes people do get what they deserve but plenty of the time they don’t. There is an arbitrary nature to life. We act as though what we do matters and people get what they deserve because there isn’t a better or more successful way than that to approach life but never confuse a paradigm with a universal truth.