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This hit me more than a decade ago but the realization that nobody really knows what they’re doing. Most painful wing it their entire lives.
I was watching Peep Show recently and at one point Mark says “The world’s just people walking around, going in to rooms and saying things.” and that’s the most succinct description of how the world works I think.
How fast time passes. Years pass very quickly now and the view of the end is approaching faster than I would like.
You didn’t ask for advice, but please consider journaling or writing a personal blog. I find that the time passes faster because I a few are novel experiences as I get older. If I put a dedicated effort into remembering what was unique about my recent days, it feels like I live more of them.
Came here for the life pro tips, this is exactly what I was looking for!
You found it little buddy.
Each time period (week, year etc) is a smaller proportion of your life.
Anything that happened when I was much younger can’t be resolved easily to the nearest year, unless I can identify a specific immutable event like a specific birthday.
I’ve found making playlists based on music releases from each year helps with this… for me I can almost immediately remember a year or time period just by hearing a song
Quite a few tracks - does one say that anymore? - I am convinced are 1980s are actually 1990s. I’m Gen X so I should be getting that distinction right!
You can just use the songs you listened to most in a given year too. Assuming you’re mainly listening to old music, my original suggestion probably won’t work.
I’ve only gotten MORE healthy and strong.
My sex drive hasn’t gone down like media tells me
Retirement is a fantasy
When I look at homeless people I think 'that could be me in 4 months if I miss 2 weeks of work.
Oh my… the homeless quote hit me hard.
I’m just tired man.
My friends a GP in the UK and they’ve said there’s been an increasing amount of people come in for “tiredness”.
It’s probably more about the state of this world rather than your age
Yeah you’re not wrong.
I feel like I can’t get ahead. Always running. Hell, I even do well for myself, good job and income. There’s always “just one more [X]”. And then we die.
Chronic anxiety is bad for your body in plenty of ways.
Yea sure, but that’s a phase that will pass.
Each additional decade of age seems half as long as the previous one was.
0-10 took forever
10-20 took 20 years
20-30 took 10 years
30-40 took 5 years
I’m 40 and it feels like 50 is next year already.
That makes sense based on your perception of time. 0-10 was your whole life doubling, over and over. 10-20, your life doubled. 20-30 your life will increase 33%. And so on.
This is a rough one.
Increasingly getting the “I don’t give a single fuck” superpower.
My ‘resolution’ this year was to be ruder to people. I’ve spent my whole adult life feeling obliged to be chronically nice and polite at all times. It’s definitely the right position to take generally but sometimes a little bit of rudeness is warranted. I don’t have to let old people at the bus stop talk at me rather than with me; I can tell them to fuck off if they’re being bigoted or obnoxious. I don’t have to let the pharmacist condescend to me when I was right about my prescription being ready; I can say ‘I told you so’, no matter how childish it might be.
The I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude has done wonders for my mental health
Same. If I hear you say out loud some anti-lgbtq crap you read on Facebook I’m calling you out, and I don’t need to be a prick about it, but condescension goes a long way.
I’ve acquired this recently and it’s made work a lot easier to deal with.
I’ve realised nobody ever gets fired in the company I work in (and I would 100% take the severance package if offered redundancy). I’ve spent 8 years being a team player, giving extra hours for nothing, and becoming one of the most knowledgeable people in the world for our system, only to be given a middle finger of a raise after a 6month fight (in which I was told almost immediately they’d take care of me and I’d be happy with it.
Well. Fuck them and their 7.5%.
Ill take the minimal amount of extra cash but as far as I’m concerned that’s SOME of my back pay for the efforts over the last 8 years. I am putting 10% effort into my job and 90% into finding a new one now (which will come with another 5% for a sideways move anyway).
A few years ago I wouldn’t be able to stop myself trying to please everyone even after all that, it’s so refreshing being able to turn off that switch which says I should care about my job. All it took was nearly a decade of mistreatment before realising they didn’t give a shit about me…
The toll of core life events. Having a child, taking care of elderly grandparents/parents. I thought it would be easier. Not easy but “he’s not heavy; he’s my brother” kind of easier. Maybe it’s me, but it feels like I’m constantly running on empty. Caregiver burnout is a real beast.
When I was a kid I thought adults knew stuff and had life figured out. I grew up to realize that no one knows shit.
Same. Grown ups have all the answers. Until I became one and learned there are 3 types of grownups: -people who think they have the answers and think you are the dumbass -people who know they don’t know stuff and only sometimes think you are the dumbass -people who don’t know stuff, don’t know what they don’t know, could not give a crap about what they should know and you are in their way.
Bah! I had everything figured out by 15! Stupid adults would never listen.
I was very surprised to find that I feel more calm, more balanced, more confident and true to myself, less worrisome and controlling, and just generally happier with every passing year.
I’ve had a very sharp mind, but I must confess I’ve noticed it slowing a little in the last few years. One of the mysterious benefits of that is now it causes me to reflect for just an extra moment before I respond. That has opened up so many more lines of communication and understanding in my personal relationships.
I didn’t realize how much younger women would love older guys with some grey. I didn’t realize how many women thought going unshaven and looking like a bag of shit (joking here but not)… was incredibly sexy.
I got a lot of experience seeing relationships all around me, and my own. And I came to discover some things about how we work inside. Majority of people never figure it out, but a lot of people do around 40. I found it very refreshing and surprising to see that within others, and it was a really cool light bulb going off for me when I got it.
I was super surprised to find out that despite my thrashing, really mostly my life was a series of random events or unlikely confluences. That is to say, through experience and reflection, I discovered that we really have far less influence in our own lives than we think. This goes for the high points and the low points.
I was really shocked actually to see how little emotional maturation there generally was as I watched my peers age alongside me. I know people who are in their 50s and 60s who do nothing except gossip in a sinister way about everybody and stir up shit. I am aware of a group of 50-year-old women wherein a marketing director got into a spat with 3 other women over a man at our social group, which ended with slashing tires. I really, really did not expect to see this kind of insanity at my age. And it still surprises me every time I see it, I must be naive at this point for giving people the benefit of the doubt.
I’m very surprised how quickly life changed from being so bored you purposely extend a poop from 2 minutes to 20 while you read the shampoo bottle for the 50th time… To the point where there isn’t a single second in our day where interaction isn’t available! We wouldn’t miss a phone call for the world in the '70s-90s even if it meant jumping off the garage roof in the middle of reshingling to answer in time. I’m surprised at how bored I feel with more media to consume than ever before.
I think seeing how fast many people turn into people they would not have liked when they were younger. It’s probably part of growing up but many people seem to not remember what they wanted to do better than their parents.
This is painful. My wife’s friend turned into her (wife’s) mother, the person who she previously claimed she most hated. In this individual’s case it’s that when she had kids she stopped caring about doing better.
I’ve noticed 99% of parents become so fucking boring to hangout with. They either stop coming out, or are tame versions of their past selves.
I can see how life has brought out deep compassion in me. But I imagine my younger self would hate me and think of me as a pushover who is not enjoying life, basically a loser who wasn’t radical enough.
“I didn’t sell out, son, I bought in. Keep that in mind.”
Welp, I am going to go watch SLC punk
How “not old” everything is. I’m not old, but when I was young I thought people my age were at the general end of one’s life. People also are surprisingly clueless.
The amount of pure bullshit I have to go through every day just for an hour of enjoyment in the evenings.
Dude, retirement is where it’s at. I retired early and it’s amazing. It took sacrifices (modest home, aggressively paying off mortgage, no fancy cars) but it’s so worth it. Most people don’t take good enough care of themselves and by the time they retire they no longer have their health. :(
That I started to not care about latest tech gadgets, and I just want to use old reliable ones that just work for my use cases. In fact I still don’t understand the point of tablets, except some rare use cases, and I still prefer my desktop computer to anything else.
I saw that change happen with my boss.
He got an iPhone 3G when it came out and then every year when Apple would release a new phone he HAD to have the latest one as soon as it came out.
Once Apple released the iPhone X he changed his tune and got fed up with the UI changing around and unfamiliarity and decided to stick with his 8 and whatever version of iOS until he was forced to replace it.
Huh? iPhone 8 is still supported and good to go. What did force him to change it?
IIRC, shattered screen and a dislike for repaired/refurbished phones.
I’ve felt the same about tablets since at least when the MacBook Air first came out⁰. I was in my early 20s. I don’t think that particular opinion has much to do with age. Tablets are a compromise device. They’re in between a phone and a computer but they’re worse than both.
everything hurts.
The immense shock of realizing that I am realistically over a third of the way through my life.
Two thirds for me.
