I was floored to discover four out of every five people in the world are younger than me

The AI Blog Post Image Generator has been doing so well lately, but when I prompted it with "How did I get to be so old?" it returned this. I can't tell whether it's spot on for today's post or simply horrifying.

Not long ago, I stumbled across a fun little app housed on the website of France's Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques, which as you might imagine translates to the "National Institute of Demographic Studies."

My use of the word "fun" in connection with an organization that studies population trends may feel like a stretch. But I'm telling you, this small section of their site is interesting. They call it "The World Population and Me," and you can access it by clicking anywhere in this sentence.

(Don't worry, it's in English.)

The first thing it asks you to do is enter your age, which in my case is 54. This immediately generated a fascinating comparison between the world population when I was born in 1969 (about 3.7 billion) and what it is today (around 8.1 billion).

That's a huge increase in a relatively short amount of time, but that wasn't what really grabbed me.

What knocked me for a loop was when I clicked on "My Place in the Population."

Doing this revealed that, as of this moment, 79% of the people in the world are younger than me, while 21% are older.

I don't know what I thought those percentages were going to be, but...I'm older than nearly 80% of current humans? What??

I had to sit down for a moment.

The ratio somewhat improved when I limited it to just the United States. A full 32% of the population here is older than me, presumably thanks to longer American life expectancies vs. some other parts of the world.

Still, it does give you perspective. Maybe "too much perspective," as the boys in Spinal Tap might say.

Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I plan to be around for a long, long time. I don't know if that's what God is planning, but that's my expectation.

It's just that sometimes the math redefines the parameters of "a long, long time," at which point I have to sit down again.

And maybe watch an episode or two of Matlock.

Another kid birthday, another milestone in the family

Despite being given the correct spelling of "birthday," the AI Blog Post Image Generator came back with this.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the fact that our oldest daughter Elissa will soon turn 30 (more on that when it actually happens in late March).

Tomorrow we hit another significant age landmark when our youngest, Jack, turns 18.

This is going to be a fun one to celebrate, partly because the "baby" of the family is finally a legal adult, and partly because Terry and I are thankfully in between milestone birthdays of our own. Neither of us is particularly anxious to reach another age that ends in "0" any time soon.

Whether you have one child or four or eight or have reached Duggar territory, your kids' birthdays are as much a big deal to you as a parent as they are to the kids themselves. They're little markers along the journey that say to the world, "Hey look! I kept this one alive another year!"

When your child completes a revolution around the sun, you have two choices:

• You can celebrate with them and be thankful for the blessing they represent in your life.
• Or you can use it as an occasion to fret over your own mortality, the perils of aging, the fleeting years, etc.

I'm forcing myself to choose the first one, but I get the temptation to go the other way.

Happy birthday, Jack!

Apparently we age in fits and starts

Six months ago, I thought I was doing pretty well in the aging department. I had just lost some weight, I only needed reading glasses very occasionally, I was free from any sort of chronic pain, and I was even starting to add strength training to my normal walking/running regimen.

Then some things happened, some of which were beyond my control:

• Suddenly, a lot of books and documents became awfully hard to see. Things I could read unaided at Christmastime are now, shall we say, a little out of focus. I have reading glasses stashed everywhere.
• That weight I lost? Gained it all back. And then some.
• A couple of weeks ago I fell. More on that below.
• I haven't lifted a weight in a few months.
• My hair, which has been a mix of gray and white for some time now, suddenly seems a lot whiter.

Thankfully – blessedly – I am still free from chronic pain. But the way things are going, I'm not counting on that lasting much longer.

As for my fall, that was admittedly my own fault. I was watching the Cleveland Guardians baseball game on my phone and not paying attention as I attempted to walk down the three steps that lead from the kitchen to our mud room.

I missed the first step, which meant I was going to miss every step. Down I went, landing hard on my backside and right elbow.

My butt is fine, if I do say so. But I STILL can't put much weight on the elbow (i.e., like when you rest your chin in your hand).

Even worse, as Terry points out, when the doctor asks if I've fallen in the last six months, I'm going to have to respond "yes."

That hurts.

I'm only 53, so it's not like I'm a senior citizen. But what I've noticed so far about the aging process is that you can be going along just fine for months and years at a stretch, confident in the thought that you're doing a good job holding back the tides of time.

Then a whole bunch of things happen in succession, reminding you what they mean when they say Father Time is undefeated.

Of course, 15 years from now I will long to feel 53 again, since this aging thing only tends to go in one direction (and it's not the direction you're hoping for).

The good news is this: So much of how we're going to feel as older adults is under our control now. Proper diet, exercise (including flexibility and balance work), stress management and maintaining social connections can overcome a whole lot of genetic baggage.

Even better is that you can still indulge in the "bad for you" things you love, but it has to be occasional and it has to be controlled.

Those are my only two problems when it comes to, say, eating sweets: "occasional" and "controlled."

Other than that, along with maybe the occasional tumble and an alarming reliance on cheap CVS reading glasses, I think I've got this aging thing under control...mostly.

My eyes have suddenly (and very rudely) betrayed me

A few months ago I posted about the fact that I still, in my early 50s, had no need for reading glasses.

I tried to say it humbly, but honestly, I think I was bragging a little.

Enter karma, stage left...

Since mid-summer or so, I've noticed that small text on my phone and computer screen is blurry and difficult to read. It wasn't blurry in the spring, and now it is.

I always assumed my eyes would age very gradually, but it feels like they went directly on the visual spectrum from "Eagle Eye" to "Blind as a Bat." And there's no denying the fact that I could now really use a few pairs of reading glasses.

I've already given in and adjusted the default text size on my iPhone, which felt a bit like an unwelcome milestone. It was a lot like my transition from running to walking: I did it, but I did it grudgingly.

Apart from Jesus and actor Paul Rudd, Father Time is undefeated in his dealings with humankind. It may take longer with some of us than others, but the fact is, we will all succumb eventually.

This admittedly is a very minor inconvenience in the grand scheme, and I'm blessed to have good health in just about all of my other physical processes. After I finish this post, I will search online for one of those inspirational memes that helps us remember to count our blessings.

Not that I'll be able to read it, but I'm sure this laptop has a text magnification button.