The benefit of having older friends
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Most of us spend our time either for study or playing with people of the same age as us, which is common since we are arranged by the school with grades that consist of people of the same age. Even our parents and society tell us to have fun with the same age because they say we have the same understanding. This kind of behavior and mindset has brought us barriers to the chance to spend more time with people of different ages, which I can argue is beneficial based on my experience.
For information, my older friends are around 22 to 32 years old, while I’m 20 years old, which is 2–12 years older than me, and they are my main circle where I spend my time the most with them.
So here are the reasons
Help you to see the future.
Since the time machine has not been invented yet (or it has, but the government hid it from us, LOL), we can’t see what exactly will happen to our life. What we can do is predict it. Having an older friend than you, especially when you all have similar activities and goals, allows you to see what will happen in the future. For example, when it talks about a job carrier, your friend who is 12 years older than you can explain how it feels in that job whether it is the same as you expect. You are also lucky to know first how living in age 30, like you will know about the pressure they get, how they face a quarter-life crisis, and how to deal with that.
Compared to only reading some article on the internet or listening to the good side when people and institutions promote their job. Having an older friend is much more credible because they are your friend, and you can see what happens in their life based on what you see daily.
Prevent you from “youngsters’ mistake.”
With limited experience but a very idealistic goal, we often make unwise decisions such as too much on the party, fighting for toxic relationships, wasting money on expensive products, and many more, as if we gonna fine and nothing will happen. At 20, fewer of us worry about having a house, job vacancy, and health. Well, it’s made sense since many of us still living on our parents’ money or simply not facing a difficult problem like that yet. By having an older friend, we will include in conversation discuss their problem, how they worry about many kinds of stuff and regret why they do not have financial management or a healthy life. You can learn from it by avoiding some actions that they regret and doing things they want to do earlier.
For example, my friend has told me about his experience of trusting the people running away to bring his money, which helped me be more selective on trusting people about my stuff.
More efficient and effective
By the end, it seems like you buy time. You have a clear picture of what gonna happen and deal with that. For example in college, I was helping to apply for scholarships and internship programs faster than anyone because I got the information about it and knew how to make the proposal because my senior who 2 years older had informed me. In contrast, my friends in the same grade do not know yet or even miss the information. It also opens wider connections since your older friend might already sit in an important position on your campus or work circle. Well, I’m not going to say you have to practice nepotism, but you will learn much more effectively and efficiently from an expert who is the older one.
To be fair of course, there will be negative side as well such as it might kill your idealistic and you lost the fun moment as a youngster but what I’m trying to say is that we have to be prepared enough about our future because 5 or 10 years is not that far, it will come sooner than you think.
Last but not least of course not all people bring good though either older or of the same age, so be careful to choose people you spend time with.
