9 Things Only Old Souls Will Understand
For anyone who’s an old soul, you’ve probably experienced feeling older than you are and have wondered if you were a reincarnation of some great-grandparent. Perhaps the term "old-fashion" is a nickname your friends gave you in addition to "mom" during drunken nights at the local bar or club - because you're the one taking care of everyone else.
It's hard for old souls to say exactly why we are the way we are... it just comes naturally. In fact, very often we don't even realize that we are old souls until other people (kinda sorta jokingly) tell us that that's what we are. But once we recognize it and accept it, there are certain things that only we can understand:
9) We think deeply - about everything.
When we walk into a local cafe, we don't just say "hi" to the barista and move on with our lives. We have to wonder what their life is like, how long they'll be working here, why they chose to work here in the first place…assuming, of course, we can get past our internal epiphany about the soothing presence of coffee. Deep thinking about the world around us takes up a lot of our time.
8) We live life on the ledge.
For old souls, there's something magical about sitting, relaxing, observing and reflecting on a windowsill ledge in our homes or apartments (yes, they're even better than our beds) looking out on the world around us. It's our go-to spot when we come home from work or school, book, Nook, or newspaper in hand, and we know there's no better place in the entire universe.
7) We’re compassionate.
Seeing a half-naked homeless person stumbling around on the train really breaks our hearts. We can tell that poverty has scrambled their minds and we want to give them a big hug…but seeing as they have no pants on, we just wish them well (we’re compassionate, but we’re also sanitary…). Old souls are much more empathetic than we are sympathetic. It’s easy for us to worry about random people who look like they have trouble on the horizon. As a result…
6) People like to talk to us.
There’s something about old souls that attracts people. Friends and acquaintances come to us for advice and to talk through their problems – they know we’ll give them sound, thought out advice (we love giving advice!). Even strangers will often strike up conversations with us. It’s good, though – we enjoy listening to life stories of the people around us, so we’re happy to chat it up with the cashier at the local deli or the person sitting next to us on the bus.
5) We channel a historical time period.
Old souls always wonder if we were born in the wrong time period. It's not because we hate the generation we’re in, but because other generations seem to fit us so much better.
4) We feel detached from the world.
We read articles and debates about everything from whether or not to shave our armpits to how to get our shit together while not ruining our lives in the process and we just find ourselves slowly shaking our heads to all of it. It’s not that we can’t relate to society right now, it’s just that…well, we can’t relate. We feel oddly misplaced within our own culture.
3) We find joy in simple pleasures.
Drinking tea early in the morning while watching the ceiling fan turn, having a picnic in our backyard, watching the sun glow on our grandfather’s face as he looks out the window. These are few of the many things old souls like love to record in our memories. We know life is short and sometimes sweet, so we like to make the most out of it by cherishing the simple things.
2) Our maturity is A++.
When we were growing up, we’d regularly hear our parent’s friends commenting on how articulate and polite we. Later, in our teens, we’d start to hear that we seemed older than we were. As an old soul, we took these comments as compliments.
1) We enjoy our alone time.
We tend to have a pretty big circle of friends, but still somehow we feel like we’re very different from them. Not in a superior way at all – just different, which is probably why we’re always the ones giving advice. And while we enjoy being with the people we love, we also enjoy having time to ourselves. We know that there’s a difference between being alone and being lonely.
