Do you remember when the older kids at school used to bully the younger ones because they were … well, younger and inexperienced? And isn’t it something that the pattern keeps repeating itself even as we grow ‘older and wiser’?

I have to confess that I’ve found myself a few times thinking that nobody under 30 would be able to do my job as good as me, simply because I’ve been doing it longer. And that’s a fallacy. A myth that if we all truly believed and followed would probably bring disastrous results in all domains. Doing something longer does NOT necessarily mean doing it BETTER.

And that brings me to the mantra that McCain chanted during his whole campaign and that many Republicans keep singing: ‘Obama is inexperienced’. Why? Because he is much younger than McCain and as a result he’s been in politics for fewer years?

Obama will be president of the USA at age 47. But, the other two North American leaders were also elected to their posts in their 40s: Stephen Harper of Canada at 46 and Felipe Calderon of Mexico at 44. And it’s not as if Angela Merkel or Gordon Brown are that far behind having been elected to office in their early 50s.

Are they really too young? Sorry, but compared to McCain EVERYBODY is too young!

American author Kurt Vonnegut once said on aging:

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

So my message to my childhood friends is simple: stay away from politics and let’s remain friends forever!