Ask Lemmy

Realizing how stupid you were when you were young.

I'll tell you the worst thing. Far worse than anyone else here can mention.

Time is constantly accelerating. When you are 5, the concept of a year is nearly an eternity. But your perception of time changes the older you get. Every year is shorter and shorter. Like you are on a constantly accelerating ship headed to the end of existence.

The older you get the less time with friends and more time alone you have.

You start to realize there's only a finite amount of time left and start having to choose what you're going to start based on what you'll be able to finish and what you could have spent your finite time on instead of.

Also loved ones and close friends passing away is hard, but the state before that... getting ill and their health going downhill... no longer able to be the person you grew up with. It's mentally rough.

Finally, your body no longer being able to cash the check your mind wants to write.

The body is like a machine, and the older you get: parts suddenly break down and can’t be fixed anymore. Some parts got damaged when you were young (meniscus, teeth, hearing) and they then start causing problems when you’re old. It’s practically impossible to loose weight after 50. Your libido goes down the drain.

The loneliness as all of your loved ones die and your friends disappear.

As a kid I wanted to live forever. As an adult I understand how that would be endless torchure.

I lay here in an empty bed. This time last year I had a wife, 3 cats and a dog. Its been a brutal year to say the least.

You aren’t getting any more teeth, so take care of the ones you have.

Stress produces cortisol. Cortisol reduces your empathy.

Like Casandra, knowing the future won’t make you happy or get people to listen to you.

Intelligence is setting your medication to automatically arrive when you run out. Wisdom is having it arrive a week before you run out.

To watch your body deteriorate more and more, and your brain as well. It makes life harder, little by little, every day.

Old people don't do so many things anymore because they just can't, because it gets too hard.

Not doing things anymore that you have always done, that is one definition of dying (some start it very soon in their life). In the end you don't do anything anymore.

I'm still pretty young yet but one thing I've noticed with growing older is how less and less people your age seem to want to have fun. I don't mean acting silly I mean finding time for joy in life and expressing that inner child. And yet they still make mistakes and deal with them like a kid would :/

It really feels like being with children acting like adults, who have forgotten how to be children. Just weird lol.

You're tired all the time. You realize there's degrees of tired and you figure out how to do things at different levels.

Three main things from my personal experience.

1. Sleep is shit. I remember when I was a teen or in my early 20s. I could sleep like a baby for 10 hours straight and wake up like tigger, raring to to, full of vim and vigour. Now I sleep in half hour bites. Each time I wake, I have to change position because some bit or other feels like it's going to sleep (the irony!) or just hurts. At least once in the night I need to pee. My dreams, at this point, inevitably become some variation of me looking for a toilet and they're always dirty or broken or something is wrong with them. I wake feeling tired, even if I get 10 hours in bed.

2. Chronic arthritis. I'm not that old (late 50s) but my hips are utterly fucked. I can't walk for more than a couple of miles before the pain starts. I can't have steroids because (apparently) my hips might just fall apart. I can't have hip replacement surgery (Fuck! That's something old people have done!) because the arthritis isn't currently sufficiently debilitating.

3. People no longer notice you. When I was younger I was a good looking guy. I had girlfriends who made everyone's head turn. Women fancied me, men were envious of me. Now, I'm just some old guy. It's pretty fucking rare that anyone gives me a second glance. I'm just some old guy.

The weight of experience.

The heartbreaks, failures, disappointments, and losses you experience in your youth accrue and do permanent damage over time. Also, everything you loved in your youth will be unrecognizably different or gone completely within 20-30 years. (Which is why I recommend people get in the habit of journaling.)

Also, you won't digest food as well as you age and your digestion's going to get weird.

The future seems distant but the past is an instant. Your life seems like it went by in a flash.

In your mid 30s all the pets you and your friends got as your first pets as “adults” die. That first dog for your first place? Dead. That first cat after college? Dead. They all die in the same ~5 years period so you relive your loss through your friends over and over, and dog save you if those happened to be the pets your children were born with… it’s so hard

RIP Evey, Momo, Bonnie, Otie, Maddoc, Buddy Lee, Twinkie, Blue and Pippen, among so many others, we still miss you 💔

Your body ages faster than your brain. Your brain says “go ahead, jump!” Your body says, “aw fuck!”

It fucking hurts.

Seriously, every day there's a new ache or pain. Things that never hurt when I was younger now hurt if I think about them wrong.

Body on Monday: "So we're taking a step today, are we? Not without your ankle suddenly feeling like a knitting needle is being driven through it for the next week".

Body on Tuesday: "Sneezed, huh? Enjoy the feeling of your lower trapezius muscles being ripped from your back!"

Body on Wednesday: "Did you turn your head slightly to glance over that way? Boy, you don't like this neck, do you?!"

Body on Thursday: "Yeah, nothing fancy today. Just flaring up this old back injury, because you turned over in your sleep".

And so on ...

It can feel like you're slowly fading out of existence. Almost like you're gradually becoming a ghost. No one cares that much about anything you have to say or anything you do because you're old. I'm lucky because I have a home that's mine and I'm surrounded by family and friends, but I'm starting to realise how hard it must be if you get old without those things. Like becoming invisible alone. Also, it's pretty obvious now that the end is coming at some point. When it does I hope it's quick. I hope I don't see it coming and that I don't end up being a burden on my loved ones.

You have to live with all the mistakes you've made your entire life.

Losing friends is probably up there.

Realizing, that adults are just as clueless as kids when dealing with problems. They just don't have anyone that will solve it for them.

Vision changes. Can't read my tablet with my glasses on. Can't read the TV with them off.

Becoming a widower really really sucks.

The aches and pains are rough some times. The stupid crap you did that was fun as a kid will find you eventually.

Starting to lose the strength I always had. Used to be able to lift nearly anything i could put my arms around. Carrying a clothes dryer up a set of stairs by myself wasn't bad. Still strong but not like I was.

It's traumatic for many. People start to realize that they actually age in their 30s and turn to weird shit because they don't know how to deal with trauma of aging.

Rampant discrimination against older people, especially women is crazy and something you don't fully notice until you or your peers are affected directly.

A lot has already been said, but one I didn’t see that I truly never expected is that I’m losing my grip strength. I drop things all the time now, and those pickle jars don’t open nearly as easily.

Witnessing all the people who die, such as parents, friends, family, and famous people.

Getting older is great! You've been around long enough to see how some things change while others stay the same. You start to care more about some things and less about the rest. Every year is my favorite age! Except for the year i lost my mom- that was worst thing about aging.

No purpose, no goal. My entire life has been driven by: goto college, meet someone, get married, buy a house, have a kid, pay for college, save for retirement. Ok, done?

A lot of comments here with legitimate aspects of getting older, but not many that aren't fairly common knowledge.

I offer the compressed sense of time as you age. Everything just seems to go by faster and faster leaving you wondering where all your time went when things are over.

Be wary of burnout. That shit takes years to recover from.

Healing slower and the inability to cash in on potential.

Being excluded from culture when you feel like the same person you always were. At some point in your life, every TV commercial, every new service, every trending product will be aimed right at you. And then you'll age out of the marketer's target bracket, and suddenly the party is over and you might as well be dead.

It doesn't sound like a big deal because all that stuff is bullshit anyway, except our entire human culture has been replaced with a synthetic one, and everyone embedded in it takes the cue and treats you the same.

You get smarter but young people keep being dumb.

All right all right all right.

That you feel like you woke up in a completely different meat suit, than the one you were used to for 40 odd years. Nothing is the same. Clothes don't fit the same, you can't pull off the same styles you once could, you can't bend or reach the same. Injuries seem to be delivered by someone with a voodoo doll of you and a lifetime of object jealousy. The view from the top of the hill, doesn't look any different than the incline, they lied to you about that. Your brain and who you are feels the same as your late 20yo brain, but with some well learned lessons under its belt, so you kinda watch everything slide around you, it kinda feels like that time lapse of the fruit rotting. And time moves faster. When you're 10, one year is a larger portion of your life than one year is, comparatively against 40 odd years, and it literally feels like that. It gets to a point where a year feels like a month. But your emotions and perspective on the world slows down and zooms out, and now you can see the forest for the trees. You realise you were a little brainwashed into thinking certain things mattered, that really really didn't at all. The flip side of that coin, is knowing what really matters, and appreciating it so much more. You can't achieve that without trying every biscuit on the tray. My you be blessed with the privilege to learn what it feels like to grow old with yourself. Not all of us do.

In my 30's, if my pee was extra yellow I'd think "Wow" and then get on with my life. In my 70's, if my pee is extra yellow I think " My organs are broken! I'm dying!".

While it is commonly shown in media, the "seeing everyone you love die" thing is generally reserved for immortals; but it can happen just getting old, too. You'll likely die long after your grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles. And if you're very unlucky, a lot of people younger than you as well.