Intercultural Psychology

 “Youth is wasted on the young.” – George Bernard Shaw

Is youth really wasted on the young? Or do we, as we grow older, begin to speak to the young with a tone that carries a hint of complaint, a sigh beneath the surface? As if an unspoken sentence lingers in the background: “We struggled… now it’s your turn.” Or that familiar refrain: “You’ll understand when you’re our age… though by then, it will be too late.”

this phrase is not really about the young at all, but about life’s peculiar sense of timing. The one thing that, once gone, is truly gone: time itself. The quiet accumulation of “if onlys” and soft exhalations of regret.
If time had a voice, what would it say? “Same old, same old… surprise me for once” perhaps. If we had to listen to the same regrets, the same sighs, millions of times over, wouldn’t we too grow weary? Maybe time’s greatest burden is not passing but our repetitions.

Youth is not truly wasted, nor is it lost. We are simply a little lost ourselves until we reach the age where we can understand it. A small cosmic joke life plays on us.
Life seems to say: I give you energy. I give you courage. I give you impulse.

And I give you a Ferrari.

But I don’t give you the map. Not yet…You set out anyway; some speed, some swerving, a few minor collisions… And then one day, life returns and says, “Now.” Now it hands you navigation. A compass too… perspective, and the wisdom of slowing down.

youth, there is energy, courage, impulse . But perspective… arrives a little later. Because perspective has no shortcut. It comes with time, drips in through experience. And one day you notice: things are clearer now.

There’s an English expression: “Hindsight is 20/20.”

20/20 is perfect vision. It means that when you look back, everything appears crystal clear. But in the moment, everyone is a little blind, a little off-balance, a little bewildered. And still, we do the best we can with what we have.
This is where the irony begins. The only reason we can see things clearly today is because they are already in the past. That clarity was never available to us in real time.

So the “mistakes” of youth only look like mistakes from a distance. If the mind we had back then were as clear as it is now, we wouldn’t have made those choices in the first place. Which means there is a process: learning, growing, becoming wiser—over time. And wisdom cannot be rushed. Especially the 20/20 kind…
Once we understand this, instead of labeling our past as “wrong,” we can say: “It had to unfold that way.” That perspective opens a more compassionate, fair, and supportive space within ourselves. Because youth often turns unnecessary battles into epic stories, makes small things feel life-or-death, and quietly misses the truly big ones.

Maybe youth isn’t wasted. Maybe youth is life’s first draft.

Full of scribbles, erased lines, wrong turns, overflowing emotions… But without that draft, the final version can’t be written. Your heart breaks a little, you lose your way a little, you later laugh at your own drama. And without realizing it; you build yourself. Perhaps the reason we feel “wiser” today is because of a few spectacularly wrong decisions we made yesterday. Maybe the real issue isn’t that youth belongs to the young. Maybe it’s that some people age without fully digesting depth and humor. The energy fades, curiosity fades, courage fades… and all that remains are calendar pages. And somewhere inside, a quiet sentence echoes:
Youth was not wasted on the young… some simply retired the spirit of youth too early. Perhaps life’s most elegant balance is holding the spirit of youth together with the perspective of age. What we now call being “ageless” might be exactly this: someone who still wonders, still laughs, still plays; yet knows which battles truly belong to them.
Life is a system that runs a little backwards. First, it gives you energy, time, and courage and most probably equips you with a 20/20 eyesight. Then it gives you experience, and loads meaning retroactively. Life hands you youth without a manual; the manual arrives years later.
And at some point, you realize:

 You’ve learned how to read.

With a 20/20 mindsight.

Aysen Darcan, March 2026

Website: aysendarcan.com
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