I'm gobsmacked!
I've been searching for some images of content mid-life people...aged 35-55. This is the age group I want to work with in Flourish, where the likelihood of insight and wisdom is greater.
I was looking at the free sites: Pixabay, Unsplash etc. and it seems that amateur photographers aren't interested in us! This picture is the closest thing to a middle aged content woman I could find. She's not very middle aged!
Search terms: happy woman older; happy woman mid life; happy women middle age. Thousands of photos of young attractive women. A few of older women (65+), some REALLY old. But mid-lifers? Not a sausage!
Then I thought: what about men? Same thing! Not so much the young beautiful men, just very few images.
Does this mean it's ok to be young and beautiful or old and wise, but in-between those two we are persona non-exista? Or maybe the curators of these sites have a youth bias? (Or maybe amateur photographers don't know any middle aged people.) It was really striking!
I check the paid image sites next, and voila! There we are. I guess those interested in selling photos realise we are a 'market'. But for people who just like taking photos for fun...nup.
This just gives me more energy to get my Flourish program off the ground and into the world. Our bodies might reach their peak in our late 20s but our characters are only ripening in our mid 30s and beyond.
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