The fact is, you have been forgetting things since you were hatched, but until you decided it was a factor of age, you didn’t pay much attention to your momentary lapses in memory. Reaching some chronological milestone triggered you to brand yourself as "older" and, therefore, "forgetful." Your increased attention to your everyday memory lapses increases your conviction that age and poor memory are inevitably linked. You reinforce these assumptions every time you say something that reinforces these beliefs, such as, "I just can’t remember anything anymore."

Wendy Beall