
Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people? - AnonHP
Older people can remember what it was like to be young. Younger people, on the other hand, cannot know first hand what it is to be or grow old. They can only see others around them and get some sense of the struggles, imagining themselves to be immune to those.<p>In your experience, what is it like to be or grow old (whatever your definition of old is) from the physical health aspect and the general frailty of the aging human body?<p>What are the health related struggles that have come into your life or have gotten worse because of increased age and how have you dealt with them?<p>With your experience and knowledge, what would you advise younger people (or even your own younger self of decades past, if you could)?
======
irvingprime
What's it like to be old?

My boss is younger than I am and is absolutely sure he knows more about my job
than I do, even though I've been doing it since before he was born and he
never did it at all.

People on TV keep trying to sell me stuff like Metamucil, some new kind of
cane or similar silly gadget, or a scam investment, none of which I want.

My grandkids can't understand why I can't read things they're holding right in
front of my face until I've spent twenty minutes finding, then cleaning, my
glasses.

My wife has heard all of my jokes and all of my excuses. She now criticizes
the former and laughs at the latter, instead of the other way around.

My friends sound like cranky old sticks-in-the-mud who wish they could turn
back the clock to a time that wasn't nearly as wonderful as they claim to
remember it was.

A trip to the supermarket now tires me out and instead of going out with
(surviving) friends, I really look forward to taking a nap on the couch.
Really.

The celebrities I recognize are senile and/or decrepit. The ones who are
currently popular are appalling.

I don't have enough money to retire but dream of it every day (See the above
comment about my boss).

Life is fantastic, except when it's not. Whichever it is now, pretty soon, it
will be the other one.

My advice: Pay attention.

~~~
gautamcgoel
Can you please expand on that advice? What should we be paying attention to?

~~~
mixologic
Your teeth. Pay attention to your dental health.

~~~
jasonv
I had mediocre dental care for most of my life. Not bad, but I never liked it.
I got my first crown, was supposed to get two. It was traumatic. It didn’t
feel good. I was depressed.

I found a dentist recommendation. Visited him, he looked at my teeth and said
while it all met “the standard of care”, some of the old work would eventually
need to be replaced, and the crown fit could be improved, and the other crown
I needed could be replaced with an alternate procedure.

I got a good feeling from him. I spent the next 3 months having him re-do
everything in my mouth. i was terrified and uncomfortable but I just went into
it headlong. I was a bit flu$h, but it didn’t actually cost a lot.

It made all the difference in the world. My bite felt better. My teeth felt
good. The tooth sensitivity to temperature vanished. I never think about My
teeth anymore. They work, they are comfortable.

I think of myself as someone who is scared of dental visits. He cured me of
that. I plan and attend each visit diligently.

I have a new dentist now.. I moved. I found someone I like. Understanding that
my dental dissatisfaction was rooted in work that “met the standard of care”
but which wasn’t satisfactory with each bite and sip I took was
transformational.

I also floss diligently.

~~~
ethbr0
I asked a dental hygienist about this: "Why is there a focus on relaxed, spa-
like dental practices? Who are these people who are scared of the dentist?"

She said it absolutely came down to past experiences. Apparently there are
some really shitty dentists out there, in the sense of causing unpleasant
experiences.

If you didn't get one of those as a child, you have no problem with visiting
the dentist. If you did, dentists terrify you.

I never really thought about it that way before.

~~~
jasonv
Yes, I had a rough-handed dentist as a child, and in one year, had to have a
bunch of cavities filled. It felt like a horror show to me.

I don't care about the facilities themselves... but when looking for a dentist
now I've put it out directly that I have a past fear of dentistry, and I've
been assigned a hygienist who has a more careful bedside manner than others.
It says right on my chart that I'm anxious about dentistry. The newest doc
I've had to switch to was diligent about noting it and talking me through,
acknowledging where I was coming from. Metal on teeth is also a thing for me.

I'm pretty much over the hump now, but it was an effort to work through it. A
few good offices who where explicit in their response to my feelings did
wonders, too.

------
jfoutz
First, you'll probably never think of yourself as old. You'll look in the
mirror and wonder why 20 year old you has all this gray hair and wrinkles.

Second, it's ok to let things slide for a while, but the longer you let them
slide, the tougher they are to fix (and if you wait too long, some things
can't be fixed). See plenty of other comments about teeth, back, RSI, diet. If
you decide to let something go for a while, pick a time to follow up on it,
and reevaluate.

Third, problems get bigger, stakes get higher. But you'll learn more tricks
for coping with those problems. Sorta grim, but suicide rates by age climb
till 50ish. around then you'll have (sorta) seen it all, there's not much that
the world can throw at you that'll put you in a complete tailspin.

I can't tell you how to live your life. I'd suggest, be true to yourself, be
true to your ethics. If you don't know what those are yet, try to figure out
who you are. When you're stuck in a stressful situation, at the end do you
want to feel vindicated? do you want to have a great outcome for everyone? do
you want to just leave it all behind? Do you want to just grit your teeth and
get through it? Those all point to different values, and can help you figure
out who you are.

Some people age gracefully and some don't. some people get to make choices
about that, and some don't. It's going to be ok. Everybody gets through their
life one way or another.

~~~
Viliam1234
> I'd suggest, be true to yourself, be true to your ethics.

This. You will forget the people who hurt you. But you will remember the
people you hurt. You will accept the things you tried and failed. But you will
regret not trying. Going against your ethics will leave scars on your soul,
and the reasons for doing so will seem so stupid in hindsight.

But it takes some time to find your true ethics, and separate it from merely
what other people say you should do.

~~~
cercatrova
>You will forget the people who hurt you. But you will remember the people you
hurt.

Could you elaborate on this? It seems like the exact opposite to me, I would
more likely remember someone who hurt me than someone I've hurt, which in most
cases I wouldn't even know I hurt them.

~~~
Viliam1234
I meant only the things I am aware of. (And excluding the category of people
who deserved it.)

Simply said, if someone hurts me, it means the person is an asshole. If I hurt
someone, it means I am an asshole. The latter fact is more important to me,
because a) I care about myself more than about other people, and b) I will
have to live with myself for every day of my life, while other people will
come and go.

Once I hurt a random bystander, because I wanted to fit with a group of cool
kids, and they decided they didn't like his face. Yep. I am not the kind of
person who does this often, and I would want so much to say that I am the kind
of person who would _never_ do it... but I lost the right to say those words
since that day, irrevocably, forever.

And what did I gain in return? Pretty much nothing. It didn't win me a group
of cool friends, mostly because those kids soon stopped being friends with
each other, and some even turned into bitter enemies. Using the wisdom of
hindsight, many of them were a lousy friend material in the first place. A few
years later, life took us in different directions, and I haven't seen them
since. These days, finding and contacting them using social networks would be
trivial, but I just don't care anymore.

If I could turn back time and use the wisdom of hindsight, I wouldn't give a
fuck about the cool kids, and would say "hello" to the stranger instead. And,
who knows, there is a chance I would have found a good friend. -- But now,
whenever I notice I betrayed my ideals again, I remember that day as the
symbolic moment when I wandered off the path of righteousness.

Compared to this, situations when other people hurt me seem less important,
often didn't have long-lasting consequences, and sometimes even turned into
something good! For example, a girlfriend cheated on me with my friend, and a
few other mutual friends knew about this, but no one said a word to me. Then I
got some evidence, and after connecting the dots I realized they all have been
making fun of me for quite some time, making hints to each other I didn't
understand. That hurt!

So I broke contact with all of them, and drowned my sorrow in workaholism. A
few years later, I had more money than most of my former friends combined.
Then I burned out, so I decided to slow down and enjoy life again, made new
friends (much better ones), and new girlfriends, and lived happily ever after.
:) One day, I met my former friends, we had a beer in a pub, I watched them
and listened to their stories, and realized they were a bunch of losers, and
they unknowingly did me a great favor by preventing me from becoming one of
them. Never met them again; don't care.

Which of these stories was better, speaking from a completely selfish
perspective? The one where I hurt someone, or the one where I got hurt? And
this is the lesson about ethics that young people sometimes don't get. Ethics
is not merely another bullshit that adults tell you as a part of their
neverending attempts to manipulate you. Strong internal ethics is the thing
that allows you to navigate through hard times, and then look in the mirror
and feel good about yourself (and have a story where you are the good guy).
Lack of ethics makes you weak, and tempts you to sacrifice parts of your soul
for things that will feel worthless much sooner than you can imagine at the
moment.

------
mark_l_watson
I am 69, so I will chime in here: I now spend much more time dedicated to the
food I eat, exercise, and meditation.

A good thing is that I mostly no longer care much about changing other
people's opinions on things. I certainly enjoy talking and expressing myself
but if someone listens to me then that is sufficient - they don't have to
agree with me. It works the other way also: even if I disagree with someone, I
can enjoy hearing what they say.

I retired 1 1/2 years ago and have been enjoying having lots of time to read,
write books, spend time with friends and family, and hiking. That said, just
yesterday I verbally agreed to a job offer for work that was just too
interesting to pass up. Assuming that the employment contract looks good, then
I am all-in.

My advice is to not worry about getting old, just make sure that you enjoy
your life as much as possible. There are sayings about living life one day at
a time, but that seems too coarse grained. I would suggest enjoying every
minute of your life, and if you are not happy right now, this instant, then
file a bug report with yourself. You can't do good work if you are not totally
into the moment of what you are doing. You can't enjoy listening to someone if
you are inside your own head and not giving that person your full attention.
Play time and family/friend time are wasted if you are thinking about wanting
to be doing something else.

Thanks for posing a good question.

~~~
syndacks
Hi, thanks for sharing. This resonates.

What kind of books did you write?

~~~
davidrupp
Since Mark himself may not care to post this:
[https://markwatson.com/books/](https://markwatson.com/books/) .

------
eludwig
Physically, my best advice is to take good care of your back and your teeth.

These 2 things can make a huge quality of life difference once you are past
40. I would also add your eyes, but there is not a lot you can do about that
one! Almost everyone needs reading glasses by 40. Glasses suck, but you get
used to it.

Psychologically, the best I can say is to forgive yourself for any stupid
things you did when you were young. Try to be as kind to yourself as you would
be to others. I think of this as the "inverse golden rule." Really important
as you get older, because regrets and self-doubt pile up otherwise.

~~~
jedberg
My eye doctor told me something very useful about 20 years ago, when I was in
my early 20s.

He told me not to wear my glasses unless I had a headache. He said that your
eye has muscles and they need workouts like the rest of your body. So I
basically never wore them.

I was just on the cusp of needing a prescription back then. He gave me glasses
because insurance covered it so why not he said. But then gave me the advice
above.

I’m 43 now and can see just fine without glasses. My prescription has been
stable for 20 years.

~~~
satya71
I'm not certain that's sound medical advice (in fact, my intuition leans on it
being bad advice)

------
Lendal
I remember when I was a teenager and wondering what life would be like at 50.
Now I know.

You feel exactly the same, only with less time left. You're still you. You
still feel the same. You still want to experience all the same things and
achieve. But now with less time, you have to start triaging some goals and
face reality.

I remember thinking I have all the time in the world. Now I don't. So I guess
that's the main difference.

Also, I used to hold the illusion that I'd always have my family and parents
to talk to. But that's not true either.

~~~
null_deref
Oh man, I never want to lose my mom

~~~
AndrewOMartin
The alternative is worse.

------
softwaredoug
Don’t give too much of your life to trying to control (ie politics, other
people...).

How to do this is of course hard. Meditation helps me. Relationships.
Balancing my consumption of news. Staying away from histrionic people that
drive that anxiety (read Twitter). Taking a break from that which bothers me
(developing hobbies and other interests).

Even as I get older I increasingly have a sense that all attempts to control
will be resisted by others. Even when you have their best interests at heart.
People willfully, sometimes ignorantly make their own big mistakes to resist
being controlled. Sometimes though we’re not as smart as we think we are. This
applies to so many situations, including work, politics, and parenting!

In work situations I am conscious more and more of wanting to lead by
following, stepping back, let other people be in charge and get the glory.
It’s really the most sustainable path for a sane life. Instead of doing,
teach. Instead of teach, listen to other people’s wisdom. Paradoxically by
being silent and non-action can sometimes have the biggest impact.

~~~
andreilys
_“Paradoxically by being silent I have the biggest impact.”_

The impact may not always be positive. In some cases you are uniquely situated
to lead, and by turning the opportunity down you create a vacuum for a less
savory character to take place and inflict pain onto others.

~~~
softwaredoug
This is true, though in many cases it's like 80-90% lead by following (w/
great people). 10-20% have a deft touch and show/create vision out of the
team's raw material of ideas and inspiration

------
jedberg
No matter how you live your youth, you will probably regret it when you are
older. Unless you inherit so much money that you don't have to ever work in
your life.

If you spend your youth having fun and enjoying your youth, then when you get
to middle age you'll have wished you worked harder and saved more so you could
be wealthy and comfortable.

If you work your butt off in your youth and have lots of money and successful
career, you'll wish you spent more time relaxing and having fun in your youth.

The key is finding a good balance between working hard and playing hard. Your
career won't suffer if you take a week long vacation. Your health will be fine
if you sometimes volunteer to do a weekend shift. Do both and you can be
successful and happy about how you spent your youth.

~~~
tasuki
Inheriting money doesn't change things so much: the people I've met who've
inherited a lot of money generally felt a bit lost.

I'm not quite old yet (everyone would say that, right? I'm 35), and I don't
regret my younger self at all: during the past 12 years I worked cumulatively
9 years and had 3 years off inbetween jobs. I managed to save up some money,
as well as travel and have time for myself.

~~~
toyg
I sincerely disagree.

Ever since I had kids, being forced to work for a living has been a massive
weight on my life. Inherited wealth would be a great help.

Luckily, the fact that I don’t expect to inherit much of anything gets me out
of the moral implications of wishing anyone’s death (which is actually the
second biggest worry, at the back of my mind).

~~~
goatinaboat
_Ever since I had kids, being forced to work for a living has been a massive
weight on my life. Inherited wealth would be a great help._

The problem with these kinds of hypotheticals is that had it been that way,
you would not be the you that feels this way.

Aged as I am now, a windfall like an inheritance or a lottery win would
probably be invested sensibly towards my retirement. But would a much younger
me have blown it all on bitcoin speculation or something equally dumb that
seemed like a good idea at the time?

------
kinkrtyavimoodh
Being generally mindful of what you eat and how much you weigh should be
second nature to you, not something you start doing frantically when you are
50 pounds overweight.

Weigh yourself at least once a week in a consistent fashion (say, in the
morning after peeing and pooping). If you notice your weight drifting up (> 1
lb over long-term baseline) for two weeks, do a quick audit of your diet, cut
on excess sugar, carbs etc. until it's back to the baseline.

It's relatively trivial to lose 1-2lbs over a few weeks. But doing it once you
are 50 lbs overweight will be one of the hardest things you will do, coz you
will feel like shit on most days.

Also, if you have not generally been athletic in your youth, beware of doing
extreme bulk-cut cycles to gain muscle in your 30s and later. It's easy to
gain fat, hard to gain muscle, and you are much more likely to end up just fat
while convincing yourself you are 'bulking'.

------
the_resistence
My advice at mid-50s to younger people is to learn 1. manage your energy for
your long term health, 2. enjoy time with the highest quality people you can
find (I mean that in terms of good language, hopeful,
constructive/collaborative in nature and working on themselves, empathetic to
all those around you), and lastly say "yes" to almost everything and enjoy to
the max. If my life were a candle, every year it is slowly losing some if its
brightness/energy through no fault or effort on my own. I had an unusual
situation which aged me faster than I ever wished for-- lost my mid-30s wife
to a rare cancer 3 years after diagnosis. A part of me died with her and my
heart will never heal. Still I wake up hopeful every day. We are all along for
a short ride, enjoy the hell out of it. It could/will disappear in an instant.

~~~
throwawayamzn1
This is heart breaking man.. this freaks me out. I’m a young parent, two small
kids. Working and trying to keep the family going has been hard on us and our
relationship. Need to tell my wife I love her more, you’re right it can go at
any second. This is a good thread..

------
inglor_cz
IDK if at 42 I am considered older, which means that I probably am.

Do take care of your health. Really, do. Even though genetic makeup of our
bodies obviously plays a role, at my age the gap between people who care and
people who don't starts resembling a chasm. You have slender and vital
fortysomethings that still hike in the mountains and you have 400lb T2
diabetes sufferers who have hard time tying their shoelaces. Don't strive to
be the second type. Imprisoning yourself in sick body is not cool.

Some substances like tobacco, alcohol and sugar are emphatically bad for you,
especially in quantities that we tend to consume. Our modern society is all
about overconsumption, so buyer, beware. Having a piece of cake every few
weeks is OK, but you will be driven into making it a daily habit, unless you
resist the pressure. Resist it.

There is one more reason to keep yourself healthy. There are absolutely
fantastic treatments in the research pipeline. Stem cell regeneration, genetic
modifications etc. Some of those will fizzle out in the testing phase, but
some will not, and those that prove themselves will change what "aging" even
means. In 2050, heart attacks, atherosclerosis and cancers may be as rare as
scurvy is today. Today's middle aged and young people will probably have much
better silver years than anyone before.

But you really need to survive the next decade(s) to make use of those
developments.

~~~
thorin
I not sure why you mention 40 somethings being still able to walk in the
mountains. That seems pretty normal for my peer group, but I agree that might
not be the case for others. My dad was able to do fairly strenuous days in the
mountains easily in his 70s and goes hillwalking and fishing in his early 80s
still. I don't really have a handle on how normal this is as most of my
friends are kind of similar (UK based, but I know quite a lot of people
overseas too)

~~~
inglor_cz
From my former university and high school colleagues, about a third are
already too obese. 50lb+ over healthy weight.

Another third is not yet as far gone, but still lead very sedentary lives,
home to car to office to car to home.

Only the last third are people who could summit a 5000ft mountain without
totally finishing themselves off.

~~~
thorin
That's pretty sad. Last year I was trying to get in a bit better shape. I was
regularly doing over 100 push ups in an evening, some kettle bell workouts,
kayaking at least once a week and cycling once or twice a week up to 100 miles
in a ride.

I was easily one of the less fit members of my peer group. Almost everyone I
know goes running often, some doing ultras (I can't run due to knee problems).
One of the least fit of my uni friends now does at least one full
ironman(woman) a year.

I find there is a real fitness culture around me, probably due to fear of
aging. Along with diet/meditation it's the only positive way to safeguard your
future aside from reproducing.

From people I know in Europe or North America I'm also getting the same vibe.
I wonder what's so different with the people you're aware of? I'm guessing
either too much work or it just doesn't seem like a priority or even worse,
they think it's too late!

~~~
inglor_cz
I thought about your last comment yesterday, when I was sitting at a table
with a dozen other people in the 35-55 age bracket. I did a short count.

Four of us were normal weight, including one very fit guy who is sorta Czech
Indiana Jones (archeologist working around the world, very cool job). Four
were overweight, but still somewhat active (e.g. at least going around on a
bicycle). Five were seriously obese, with massive bellies.

So yeah, the principle of thirds seemed to apply. TBH this has grown worse in
the last 30 years. Around 1990, even here in Czechia where a lot of beer is
consumed, average adult person was fitter.

------
rikroots
1\. Find good friends; keep good friends. You'll probably only find a handful
of these throughout your life. Good friends help validate your existence and
make life worth living. They will surprise you. They may turn out to be a lot
older than you, or a lot younger. They may be people you grow up with, or only
meet online. You may go for years without meeting/talking to them, but as soon
as you're together again everything just becomes 'right' again. Good friends:
they really are the meaning of life!

2\. Anyone who tells you they know what they're doing - they're lying. There's
no instruction manual to life. There's no Grand Design or plan or destiny or
whatever. Everybody around you is making it up - somehow making life work - as
they go through each hour of the day, each day of the year. What works for
someone else might work for you. Or it might not. It's your adventure: go live
it!

3\. In spite of (2) above, learn to listen. Really listen. Open your ears,
then open them again. It's how you learn stuff. Taker time to listen to people
who you wouldn't normally listen to - like people you take for granted. A lot
of the stuff you get to learn will be really useful - often in very unexpected
ways. A lot of it will be of no use to you whatsoever, but the act of being
listened to may have a profound effect on the person you're listening to. You
never know - that person might just turn into your next Good Friend.

4\. Growing old - it hurts. A lot. It hurts your confidence; it hurts your
self-image. It hurts your bones and muscles in ways you never imagined it
could hurt. I think there's a lesson in this, but I haven't managed to learn
it yet. I particularly hate my bladder when it wakes me up at Stupid O'Clock
because I forgot the lesson about not drinking hot beverages too close to
bedtime.

5\. Power naps, on the other hand - they're cool!

~~~
lozf
> I particularly hate my bladder when it wakes me up at Stupid O'Clock

Be grateful, - at least it actually wakes you!

Not sure if it's just age, or other factors but I've certainly seen people who
don't always wake up in time.

Your first point also resonated with me and reminded me of this:

"One of the lessons we can learn from history is that people always move on.
Sometimes after just a little while, sometimes after years of love and
affection. Sometimes unexpectedly, But always.

------
Smaug123
This is not my advice - I'm 26 - but was given to me at school by a now-
retired teacher I greatly respect. It sounds quite wise, and I trust the
source.

I paraphrase: "Learn to classify people into three categories: givers,
sharers, and takers. Surround yourself with givers. Sharers are also
acceptable. Cut out the takers as quickly as you can."

A verbatim follow-on quote: "Takers make a beeline for givers. The needy are
always anxious to drain the emotions and finances of those who are givers,
before somehow or other they move on to sponge elsewhere, leaving givers to
wonder at their own foolishness."

(Edit: apparently people don't want advice from older people to younger people
if it's not the older person giving it. I can only apologise. It's the primary
piece of concrete actionable life advice I remember that was given to me by
anyone more than three times my age.)

~~~
kondu
This I'm sure resonates with a lot of people, but unfortunately it's sometimes
hard to cut out the takers: when they're part of your close friend circle or
worse, your family.

~~~
m463
It's taken me a long time to craft workable boundaries when you get into the
giver - taker situation with someone who is family.

I was having trouble with this once and a wiser friend told me it's perfectly
acceptable to say "I've decided x".

So I tried it out, and it seems to work. Some people are much more talented at
the right level of response.

Oh, and also: [https://xkcd.com/2346/](https://xkcd.com/2346/)

------
tasty_freeze
I'm 56, so not that old, but age is increasingly a concern. Confirming what
others have said - I am very much in touch with the teenage me and everything
between. The days are long and the decades are short, indeed.

Health - for me, health it isn't about living a long time, it is living with
self sufficiency and minimizing pain. I am not afraid of death, but I am
afraid of the years of infirmity which often precedes it. I'm afraid of living
the end of my life without my wife, but even more afraid of leaving her to
finish life alone.

Regrets - I wasted too many years missing opportunities for fear of
disappointing my parents or (later) risking appearing foolish. I assume HN has
a higher than normal mix of introverts, so maybe you can relate.

Urgency - turning 30, 40, even 50 didn't phase me; I felt young and time
seemed endless. But in the past five years the switch has flipped. In 14 years
I'll be 70. The mortality curve is tilting up dramatically; friends and family
will have died (perhaps me too). Many of the things that I always wanted to do
will not be possible, so I had better attend to them now. There are far too
many such desires, so triaging what is most important takes up more of time.

Work/life - I'll do my job competently and I'll leave it to the younger folks
to be the hero at work. I think back on the deadline death marches and jumping
on grenades to get projects back on schedule ... and every one of those
deadlines was a sham. The products I sacrificed so much for were in the
discount bin a year later.

~~~
ecmascript
I'm in my thirties right now and I feel a huge sense of urgency already. I
hate that life is so short :(

~~~
tasuki
What length of life would you find satisfactory?

~~~
ecmascript
I would like to live about a thousand years, but I'd be happy for a few
hundred as well.

------
tchaffee
Say no to fun stuff 20% of the time and invest that money - the younger the
better. Time is your very best friend when it comes to retiring comfortably.
But say "yes" to enough things that you'll have fond memories to look back on
with friends and family.

Time does start passing quicker. Perhaps the brain slows down and you capture
fewer frames per second, but the end result is you start to learn how
important it is to prioritize to avoid having spent your precious time on
trivial things instead of meaningful things.

Time is infinitely valuable compared to money. Do the math. You can always
earn more money, but you will run out of time. Does that contradict my first
statement? No. When you're older you'll want enough money to be able to spend
your time as you wish.

The vast majority of things you think are of the utmost priority now will seem
trivial looking back on them ten years later. If you can learn this early it
makes it far easier to remain rational about your decisions and how much
things are worth.

Your body will start getting in the way of things you want to accomplish.
You'll get tired sooner, you'll have health problems that interrupt your
momentum or require long periods of recovery, it will be frustrating to
struggle at things that were once easy. Don't wait too late to do the things
you are truly passionate about. Retirement might be too late.

------
japhyr
I'm only 47, but I have a couple guiding principles that have been helpful so
far. The first is to stay flexible. I've been a runner, hiker, bicyclist,
climber, kayaker etc all my life. I've gone in and out of shape depending on
what's happening in my life. The only times I've really struggled physically
have been when I let my muscles get really tight. Three weeks of steady
stretching has done more than anything to make me feel better physically. If I
can't run for some reason, maintaining flexibility makes it much easier to
pick up any of these activities again.

The second is to find some new, significant challenge in each decade of life.
Learning new things keeps us humble and alive. In my twenties I focused on
teaching and long-distance bicycle travel. In my thirties I moved to Alaska
and began doing mountain rescue work. In my forties I wrote a book, changed
careers, and learned to drive a boat on the ocean. Each of these new
experiences made me feel like I was 20 again, taking me far outside my comfort
zone. In future decades I hope to learn a musical instrument well, and travel
internationally. I'd also like to take another long bicycle trip and live
without a motor for an extended period again.

There is great joy in growing old; it's much better than the alternative. :)

------
jeffrallen
I'm surprised that most of these answers are individualistic. I'm 48, so not
really the target respondent, but I've got this to say: getting old is not
about me, it's about what I have to give to my wife, my children, my
colleagues, my church, and my community. I have faith I'll get what I need
back from them, when I need it. For now, I'm investing in my future by
investing in those around me.

------
ljnelson
This seems like it isn't physically related, but it is: as the years
accumulate, it becomes more and more clear that the person staring back at you
in the mirror is the one you have to live with most intimately. Do the best
you can with what you have, in all things, always. The person in the mirror
will know whether it was the best you could, and he or she or they will also
know whether you can be forgiven for any given action given what you had at
the time. The biggest part of this is unkindness: If you are unkind, that
person in the mirror will never let you forget it. You may not spend much time
on this when you are young but you will spend a lot of time on it when you are
older.

------
jimhefferon
61\. Choose your life partner with care.

Three in the morning and a kid with 105 who has been throwing up for a day and
you have to decide what to do. A crappy apartment but making a morgage would
be a real stretch, no fun for years, and you need to work it out. A job you
want but in a place far away from family and friends. These things and many
more will be between you and them.

Finding somebody you like, and admire, and who you like to get sexy with, and
who has something of the same idea about money as you do, and who wants many
of the same things in life, is tough.

------
sizzle
Ageism in tech is real. Don't act like you won't be old one day when you scoff
at an older engineer's resume during the interview process.

You will blink your eyes and be on the other side of the interview table in
due time and be thinking the same thing my friend.

~~~
person_of_color
How to protect against both outcomes? Should I start learning the fancy front
end framework of the week, or aggressively increase comp to FIRE?

~~~
dasil003
First of all, save as much as possible. If you are young, single and making SV
market rates for engineers, there is no excuse to be saving less than half
your take-home.

Second, learn the business and big picture of what you are doing. A lot of
engineers are inclined to go deeper and deeper technically, and indeed there
is a path to riches here if you are exceptionally good and also have a bit of
luck with your choice and circumstance of specialization. That said if you are
lucky enough to navigate this, you will have the golden hand-cuffs as only
very few companies can properly compensate and utilize such experts. Far more
reliable is general purpose business knowledge, specific domain knowledge,
and/or collaboration skills. Combining these things with programming skills is
a super power that will give you a lot of flexibility later in life.

------
stephc_int13
My first advice would be to not underestimate the importance of sleep. This is
a key factor for both quality of life and productivity. The only way to
optimize sleep is to sleep enough.

Second, try to understand the power of compound interests as soon as you can.
Life is long enough to invest and see the returns. Invest in yourself and in
projects with long-term value, don't be seduced by shortcuts and don't be a
slave.

Last thing, there is a lot of blind and seemingly unjust randomness in life,
it is better to embrace it.

~~~
tasuki
I've "slept enough" for a couple of years and developed a severe case of
insomnia. I couldn't fall asleep till 2-3am, then slept till 10am to make up
for it. Repeat. Bad idea.

Waking up at a regular time and restricting my sleep below what's comfortable
has helped very quickly. I'm considering sleeping more, but feeling slightly
groggy after sleeping 6.5 hours is way better than spending 10 hours in bed, 3
of them suffering.

Good point wrt unjust randomness, I'm terrible at embracing it. Any tips?

~~~
stephc_int13
Insomnia is a sign of a deteriorating mental health, you should focus on that
instead of trying to hide it.

~~~
tasuki
Do you have any references for that? Can't insomnia be caused by various
things?

In my case I'm pretty sure it was the consequence of sleeping comfortably long
in the morning and waking up at irregular times.

~~~
meiraleal
"Insomnia" can even be a sign of healthiness. It is often to see people
experiencing a smaller need sleep while on ketosis/low-carb diet. I've been
sleeping 5-6 hours every day for the past 2 years and although it bothers me
(because I liked to sleep a lot and still enjoy it), I don't feel tired all
day. Usually I also take a 30minutes nap around 1pm.

------
qw
When I was younger, I could skip most of the homework because I learned enough
during class. The mandatory assignments were sometimes finished quickly just
before I had to turn them in.

I didn't get the necessary practice and discipline to do independent work
unless I did it for fun. This had to be learned the hard way when I grew
older.

~~~
axaxs
Same. In my experience, the relatively smart people in school who worked hard
had more successful lives than the even smarter kids who didn't.

~~~
tyre
How do you define success?

~~~
axaxs
In the context of my comment, better jobs. Doctors, lawyers, and proper
engineers and such. Basically, the kids who worked harder excelled in college
and stuck with it.

------
austincheney
Be cognizant of phony social pretexts. I can remember everybody saying I
needed to go to college. I did but I don’t college to be a software developer.
Go to college not because of some bullshit social pretext but because you
honestly want an expanded education.

Do the hard things first. Hard things get easier with practice but practice
takes time. The easy things remain easy regardless of practice and just rob
you of the time required by the hard things.

~~~
summitsummit
survivorship bias

~~~
karlh
Good point. But really, all advice from older persons to younger persons
carries a strong element of survivorship bias. The data are biased but RCT
studies are not practical so it's reasonable to use what we have (recognizing
the limitations of our data, as you pointed out).

------
somberi
I am 47. This Buddhist quote captures the rapidity of life - "Days are long;
Decades are short".

Be kind. Really try to be kind. As young person, I am sure you already can
recollect a few instances you have been kind; increase the frequency and
amplitude of it.

~~~
amitoz_azad
This post is so much full of wisdom.

------
jedberg
Your body just won't work like it used to, even if you do all the right things
to keep it up. When I was in my 20s I could spend all day working the yard,
cutting, raking, digging, sweeping. I would stretch afterwards and be find the
next day. Now, despite having an even greater level of day-to-day physical
activity and more exercise, it will take me a few days to recover.

Once you hit 40 you start feeling random pains in places. Sometimes pretty
intense pain. Your doctor will have no idea what caused it and tell you it's
normal, but let them know if it happens again. And after a while you'll just
stop telling them, because it's just a thing that happens now.

------
PopeDotNinja
I’m 45. At 40 I wondered if I’d ever feel successful. I’d just been fired from
a shit job that took advantage of me and once again I was trying to scramble
to find meaningful employment. I found it a month later, and now retirement at
50 seems like a remote possibility if save aggressively and live a modest
life.

Feeling hopeless at 40 sucked more than feeling hopeless at 20. Feeling
hopeful at 45 is more amazing than feeling hopeful at 25. So I guess I
appreciate the good and the bad more now than I used to.

------
kyriakos
Losing weight or gaining muscle mass gets harder and harder as you age so the
older you get so its important to keep a diet and exercise routine that keeps
you at a good condition cause letting go makes things go bad much quicker and
takes way more effort to get back in shape.

~~~
AstralStorm
On the other hand, you should accept that you'll go frail, so it's better to
not tie your career to being fit if you can help it.

Unless you earn tons of money and can retire by 40, all debts paid.

~~~
meiraleal
If you stay fit after 40, ageism is not going to be a problem for you, as you
will always be seen as a senior/reference for the younger.

------
new_guy
1, people don't feel old mentally, they feel like a young person trapped in an
old persons body

2, time goes by way faster than you think, blink and you'll quite literally
miss decades of your life

advice? don't ever put off until tomorrow what you can do today, the old you
is depending on the you now to look out for him/her.

~~~
Zircom
"Bomanz let his thoughts drift. The truth was elusive. Stance would not
remember the good years. “I guess because people change and we don’t want them
to.” He could find no better words. “You start out with a woman; she’s magical
and mysterious and marvelous, the way they always sing it. Then you get to
know each other. The excitement goes away. It gets comfortable. Then even that
fades. She starts to sag and turn grey and get lined and you feel cheated. You
remember the fey, shy one you met and talked with till her father threatened
to plant a boot in your ass. You resent this stranger. So you take a poke. I
guess it’s the same for your mother.

Inside, I’m still twenty, Stance. Only if I pass a mirror, or if my body won’t
do what I want, do I realize that I’m an old man. I don’t see the potbelly and
the varicose veins and the grey hair where I’ve got any left. She has to live
with it.”

“Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up wondering who’s taken over the
outside of me. A disgusting old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to
snicker at when I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man.
I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to go.”

------
axaxs
I'm not 'old', but I'm not young anymore either, though I still remember it.
My biggest personal gripe is my brain slowly slipping. It's just not as fast
as it used to be, and my memory not anywhere as good. I was always a person
who could remember everything, even playback full conversations in my head.
Now I barely remember what I had for dinner a couple days back.

This has affected my work as I used to just be able to sit and code for hours
in Vim as I'd have all the function signatures memorized, but now I spend a
lot more time in the docs and have to use a proper IDE. I now write more
helpful comments, so I can remember why I did something. Also, I find myself
having to take notes to come back to later. I wish it was a skill I'd picked
up when I was younger, rather than having to learn now.

~~~
cgriswald
I’m experiencing the same thing with regard to memory. I’m not sure the cause.
While I used to be able to recite full conversations, tell you the color of
the trim of that car I was in one time nine months ago, and tell you the shape
of the dust lying on the convenience store counter, etc. I can’t do that
anymore. But I also think a lot more about a lot of other things that either
didn’t concern me when I was younger or weren’t my responsibility.

Maybe now I can’t remember things because I’m not experiencing them as
thoroughly because I’m always thinking about something else. Or maybe I just
realize a lot of details don’t matter. Or maybe it’s just age and my brain
doesn’t work as well. Or maybe it’s accumulated damage of twenty years of
occasional consumption of alcohol.

~~~
axaxs
Yeah, you might be right...maybe we just store so much we start evicting the
LRUs so to speak.

One other phenomena I've noticed is that I've begun misspelling words a lot.
Not like poor spelling, but using their/there/theyre incorrectly, homophones
like fill/feel, or plural is vs plural are, etc. I know these things, it's
like my brain goes into autopilot. Probably payback for always correcting
people when I was a smartass of a younger person.

------
hazeii
Ride a bicycle and learn C (I've been doing the first for 50+ years and the
second for 30+ [0]).

Some skills never go out of fashion.

[0] Personally, I found learning C harder than falling off bicycles.

~~~
chadcmulligan
I am very surprised my C (C++) skills seem to be in demand still - even seems
to be a bit of a renaissance at the moment.

~~~
mensetmanusman
Once C survives 100 years, it will likely survive 1000

~~~
justtart
Yup.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect)

------
techbio
This reminds me of the time I interviewed for a developer job at a young
startup (college dropouts and just-grads), and the interviewer asked me, age
26, "what is like to be so old?"

Given time, you'll see.

~~~
dctoedt
I distinctly remember, at age 19, not being able to imagine what it would be
like to be _old_ — like, 25.

~~~
m463
My elementary school teachers were real old women. Like 20.

------
everybodyknows
If you often don't feel well, keep investigating. Don't just let it go if you
see a couple of docs and they can't help.

Certain disorders are so subtle and poorly understood that they may go
undiagnosed for years -- and those years may later be recalled as having held
very little fun for you. Examples: autoimmune, food intolerance.

------
didip
Don't wait until you past 40 years old to take care of your health. Starts
now.

Physical exercise becomes more important to fight against aging. Especially
core exercises to take care of your back.

Watch your diet and eat well because it's so much harder to lose weight when
you are older. Not to mention your innards are deteriorating fast if you abuse
them.

Contact sports or extreme sports has super high cost when you are older.
Imagine breaking your wrist playing snowboard and you have to be out of work
for multiple months, unable to make a living by typing, etc.

~~~
disqard
I'm 39 and still recovering from a wrist injury from trying to learn
snowboarding last year. One's body does not heal quickly after a certain age
-- and beyond some point, I imagine it never really recovers from certain
kinds of physical damage.

~~~
tompark
When I was 38 I completely broke my left radius bone into multiple pieces at
the wrist end while snowboarding at Squaw Valley. On the x-rays it looked like
it was crushed into tiny pieces at the wrist. The doctor said I was lucky it
had been reset so well, and that I probably would not get full range of motion
again, but I was young so maybe I would. I said I was almost 40; he said yeah
that's young.

I could still type, mostly, and was back at work (at EA) within a few days.
The cast came off at 6 weeks, but it took years before I could do pushups
without pain. I finally got the full range of motion back after several years.

Hope your injury heals fully.

------
AnimalMuppet
Take care of your body.

People matter. Learn how to interact well with them. Yes, it matters that you
be yourself, and that you hold to what is true, but don't use either of those
as an excuse to be clumsy (or worse, brutal) with people.

Even things like clothes matter, because they're part of how we interact with
people.

------
neltnerb
My experience with aging is that you accumulate more and more injuries and
illnesses and heal more and more slowly.

The advice I'd give is to assume that any activity you might ever want to do
will be harder next year.

------
endori97
Experience the benefits of fasting -- it will take care of excess weight and
has other benefits.

~~~
voisin
Second this. Been doing a variety (16:8, 18:6, OMAD, 36/48/72hr) of fasts for
nearly five years now and it has been a life changer.

For those interested, check out The Complete Guide to Intermittent Fasting by
the Canadian nephrologist (Jason?) Fung.

~~~
diydsp
Also see Thomas Delauer's yt channel. Many good tips there. I do 1x 36 hr/week
for abt 1.5 years now.

------
p0d
I had my 25th wedding anniversary this week. My advice is to go for the
boy/girl you think is too good for you. Whether that be brains, personality or
looks. The young often lack confidence despite their cockyness. I got lucky
and got the girl who was out of my league. My self doubt nearly sent me down a
different path.

------
avenger123
It's never too late to get healthy at any age. I've realized this after many
years but have finally started to take it seriously.

I follow a lot of literature and social media around fitness. I think the rise
of social media has made fitness seem out of reach for most people. Seeing
these fitness personalities usually being in the top percentile in terms of
genetics for body weight, muscle definition and just looking amazing makes the
rest of us feel like it's not something we can do easily. Having most of these
people spout their pseudo science also doesn't help. It's hard for any sane
person to understand what to do, whether its diet (keto, low-carb, water
fasting, carnivore diet, etc.) since there is so many possibilities.

As I've grown older I've realized that staying fit has so many benefits that
it might as well be the best anti-aging change we can make for ourselves.

If you're over 25% or more body fat, it's worth figuring out how to bring that
down to 20% or less. See how far you can go. Not all of us can get to 12% and
maintain it without feeling like we're starving ourselves but I think the
higher range is doable.

I've realized for diet and exercise there is no one answer for anyone. The
wisdom of eat less, exercise more seems to be the ultimate truth.

What that looks like for each person is unique. Personally for me I've tried
all of it. I've done the 7 day water fast, intermittent fasting, low-carb
eating, etc. At the end, as long as I'm eating within my maintenance calories
relatively good clean food it doesn't matter for me which one I do.

For exercise, I've settled on three total body weightlifting sessions with
half an hour cardio session on the non-weightlifting days.

So, the best thing you can do as you getting older is figure out what works
for you. There is so many ways of eating and exercising and sometimes it takes
a while to understand what works for your body.

~~~
inglor_cz
Preach, brother.

I was never really obese, but I was overweight. It is worth knowing your
actual body composition, not just total weight.

At 36 years of age, I had 24 per cent body fat. Nowadays, at 42, I have 17 per
cent body fat. My weight is actually almost the same (+- 5 lbs).

But health and overall wellbeing is very different. Getting rid of high blood
pressure and knee pain is a huge improvement.

------
chadcmulligan
Don't worry - it will all work out. I spent a lot of time when I was younger
worrying about stuff - stuff that never happened. The stuff that did happen I
never thought about until it happened. I don't worry any more - everyone I
know who's having a good second half doesn't worry. (I don't mean skip the
basics - save some money, look after your health, don't drink to much)

------
xupybd
My father is 64. He has just been given months to live. He will be the second
in my family to die from lung disease caused by smoking. My advice for any
young person, don't smoke it'll rob you of years of life.

~~~
m463
I saw some folks years later from my home town and some of them looked older,
and they seemed to be smokers.

(My sample size is kind of small, and for all I know they had a different
lifestyle or were out in the sun more)

------
motohagiography
1\. Language is just a tool our species uses to act through others, invented
as a necessary means to protect and manage children and that has evolved to
other uses, but it is a narrow keyhole through which to experience the world,
or to express it. Most suffering is an artifact of it, and most joy is
inexpressible in it.

2\. Regret is almost always about what you didn't do, and rarely about what
you chose freely or decided yourself.

3\. Understand the effect of compounding in every endeavour.

4\. There is no 4.

~~~
AstralStorm
There is 4 for everyone, called Death. Make sure you'll enjoy it, both the
transformative metaphorical one and the literal one.

If you're lucky, you'll stare into it sooner than later and become better for
it. (When you're old, it's hard to do anything about it.)

Once you get it, you will know how to live your life to fullest while not
leaving a debt and cleanup to others.

------
upstill
As a man gets older, he seems more harmless, even neutered. At 66, I can now
have much more substantive conversations with (for example) young women.

Advice: some lessons come only with age. People often don't learn not to care
what other people think (because they're not thinking of them at all) until
their 30's. It was only recently that I really learned that if you don't have
expectations, you can't be disappointed.

------
baccheion
I realized at some point that if I took a 1-year break between high school and
college, I could've secured retirement right away.

$12/hr is $24k/year. The summer after high school and the full year that
follows is 1.25 years. That's now $30k. Working nights and weekends (2 part-
time jobs) doubles it to $60k. After taxes, there's roughly $48k left. $40k
would roughly double (in the original year's currency) every 10 years if the
S&P 500 kept growing at the historical average 7% over inflation. That's $640k
at 59 and $1.28MM at 69.

Meet all RDAs with just a variety of quality whole foods, 1:1:1
calcium:phosphorus:magnesium, and ensure sufficient quality sleep. Sustained-
release melatonin eventually. ZMA may work well enough for younger males.

Keep big hormones at pubertal levels as long as you can. Naturally (just
foods, vitamins, and minerals; not excess protein or other tricks) raise IGF-1
as much as you can. Match levels of progesterone/melatonin, hGH, and DHEA
present at the age IGF-1 represents.

At most 5-10% of romantic pairings can be minimally mutually satisfying once
the dust settles. Not 5-10% of relationships entered by a person. Rather, 5-10
out of 100 randomly selected males and 5-10 out of 100 randomly selected
women. Such a reality does not mute love, lust, the initial high/spark that
can last months up to even 2.5 years, or pregnancy.

Many can go a long time without realizing compatibility once paired is
uncommon. Worse, as 20% or 50% of women encountered (by MSW) are a mutual
match. Overlap (many matching with the same 20%), aesthetic misalignments, etc
all reduce likelihood of progression.

The typical ages at which men and women get married are 29 and 28. 50% between
those 26-35 end in divorce within 10 years. 2/3rds of second marriages end
within 10 years. 75% of third.

80% of people over 40 have been married at least once. 80% of women over 40
have had at least 1 child.

25-30 are peak years for saving. And f*cking. Avoid (relationships,) marriage
and definitely kids until after. Wait until you can think clearly.

Why buy a house if you don't have any kids? Houses are easily a trap. Always
pay cash (ie, avoid debt). Even for a car. Even for an education (tricky). And
even for a house!

Save at least 50% of take-home salary to a high-yield investment account, even
if just buying up the S&P 500 fund. Eventually, the amount saved/compounded
will recover all after-tax money ever earned. At such a time, the
interest/DRIP income will replace the take-home salary. Usually happens in
15-20 years.

------
superasn
I've posted about this many times here and so have a lot of other people: If
you're suffering from any chronic aches or pains especially back pain or RSI
it may be TMS (though only a doctor can tell you that but you need to be
informed).

The internet and medical community is full of misinformed people who will fill
your head about how a pinched nerve or a slipped disc can cause you immense
pain and some doctor may even put you under the knife. But at least read about
TMS before you do something drastic.

See tmswiki.org (not my site) for hundreds and thousands of people who have
recovered from decades of back pain after spending hundreds and thousands of
dollars but never realized it could be simple TMS which doesn't cost a dime to
fix.

I'm amongst one of these people and after nearly suffering for many many years
did someone on hacker news posted about it and that comment changed my life
literally. Pain is all I could think about back then and it interfered with my
work, relationships, life. Just reading Sarnos book got me halfway there. Then
daily exercises and watching hundreds of testimonials on YouTube made by
common people helped me more.

~~~
koolba
What does TMS stand for?

~~~
schroffl
According to the website in their comment it apparently stands for "Tension
Myositis Syndrome (TMS)"
([https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/An_Introduction_to_Tension_Myosi...](https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/An_Introduction_to_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_\(TMS\)))

------
jelliclesfarm
I think growing old in 1900 is diff from growing old in 2020. I don’t think
these are experiences that translate well over time and place.

‘What advice would I give my younger self’ also doesn’t compute. Because that
would mean that I would end up with entirely different life experience and the
person giving the advice would not exist as they would have changed. In sci
fi, this would be the classic causal loop/temporal paradox time travel
dilemma.

If this is about health, you are better off obtaining a DNA report and go
through the high risk illnesses you have inherited with your physician. I did
this and was able to identify a few things missed by my previous maternal
units. Some of them probably died because one mutation was undiagnosed.

From a dietary perspective, follow the grandmother diet. Eat what your longest
living ancestors lived. It helps if you haven’t migrated far off.

P.S: Don’t rely on dna ancestry reports migrations. I am South East Asian and
ancestry report suggested that I had a Finnish ancestor. I doubt if I can
follow the Sami diet. In California. So there is that...

My suggestion is to draw a family tree for upto 4-7 generations. 7 is ideal
but would be tough for most.

~~~
c22
> ‘What advice would I give my younger self’ also doesn’t compute. Because
> that would mean that I would end up with entirely different life experience
> and the person giving the advice would not exist as they would have changed.
> In sci fi, this would be the classic causal loop/temporal paradox time
> travel dilemma.

Are you actually worried that speculating about your younger self might
accidentally erase you from the sands of time? We don't actually have a way of
delivering our advice to our past selves, so the activity seems mostly
harmless.

~~~
mrfusion
When asking this question, I assume the many worlds theory and giving advice
to my past self would simply break off into a new branch. I’d still exist the
same but his life might be different.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
i am reminded again for the second time this week of Robert Heinlein's By His
Bootstraps. This and All you Zombies tackle time travel paradoxes in a
satisfactory way.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps)

\+ PKD's The Skull...:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skull_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skull_\(short_story\))

------
tomohawk
Life's short. Don't spend it in debt to banks. Paying off your debts is life
changing. Imagine heading into the 2008 recession with a paid off house and
car, and an emergency fund that will pay at least 6 months of expenses.
Financial worries are one of the top 3 things couples argue about. Be
different.

Don't sabotage yourself by not taking care of your body. Avoid alcohol,
tobacco, and other drugs. You can live without them, and you'll be much
healthier. Avoid excess sugar. If its not a desert, it should not be high in
sugar. Work out. Take walks. Hike. By the time you're 50, you'll notice that
people who have not taken care of themselves are no longer able to work
mentally demanding jobs.

Pay attention to stress. It's the big killer. It will kill your ability to
think, and your ability to have meaningful relationships. And, eventually, it
will kill you. If you're getting stressed, find a different way, a different
job - change whatever you have to.

------
jrochkind1
The things you spend time doing will become the things you do: What you're
good at doing, what you have a habit of doing.

So be intentional to spend time doing things you actually want to focus on, or
become good at, or have as habits.

I suspect this advice, like most advice from the old to the young, is
difficult to really understand or follow from the perspective of the young.

------
bornabox
I've learned that "old" is just a sliding scale. When I was in my teens, I
considered 30 old. When I was in my 20s, I considered 40 old. And so on. Don't
get too hung up on the exact number.

Also, there's a physical age and a mental age. One definition of old is, when
these numbers don't match up anymore. And yes, by this definition some young
people are old and vice versa - that's the idea!

Saying, "I'll do that when I'm older or when I retire" just means that you'll
never do it.

Getting older usually means acquiring more experiences. It doesn't mean that
everyone is equally good at it, typically a healthy dose of self-reflection
helps.

And lastly, memories tend to fade, which is a blessing, pr sometimes a curse.
But mostly it helps to blur things in the past. Which explains why older
people tend to idealise how things used to be (they only remember the good
parts). But it also helps people get over things.

------
wadavis
How old is "old"? FWIW as i got "older":

Health:

when young I suffered muscle pain when I worked out. At 40 the pain changed to
a skeletal pain, which wasn't nice. At 60 it started to be more tendonitis
than anything else. At 70 it's gone unless I suffer an injury, whereupon weird
stuff happens, e.g. hand injured a little in a fall, subsequent cat scratches
cause the injury to flare up, time to get an antibiotic injection - strange!

I _feel_ heavy, especially when I lay down to sleep at night. OTOH I'm working
out more consistently than I ever have, my weight is down from 220 to 185, and
so probably I'm more dense.

I'm _much_ quicker than I ever was: I catch falling objects mid-air, stop
other's falls, intercept slips and, in general, am scary quick. This weirds me
out a bit. I have heard that some people are quicker than others but, other
than extremely obvious cases of physically slow people, didn't believe that it
was possible for one person to be significantly quicker than another. I've
changed my mind about that now.

I have no known serious problems - everything is working fine, and am
primarily concerned about my CV system: all else will IMO follow. I take a low
dosage statin but I may not need it. More importantly, I'm realizing the
simple frailty of the human body and so have re-evaluated different
activities: driving (still do), cycling(won't do - crazy in my city!). Back
pain: had it since I lifted too much weight 40 years ago. Almost debilitating
in the last 2 years until I found some simple exercises that made it go away.
Most every man will suffer at least one serious back injury - if you do, you
just have to keep searching until you find the fix that works for you.

Advice:

1\. Don't ever ever pick up more weight than you've picked up before unless it
is a real emergency, 2\. If a sexual opportunity seems too good to be true, it
probably is - don't accept it. Herpes(or worse) is no fun, no matter how the
herpetic community may spin it. Note to my younger self: don't touch the
beautiful blonde!

3\. Always take the highest offer but be ready to walk out if things go badly.

4\. Don't fall for the sunken-cost fallacy - if you're in a bad relationship
of any sort then get out early and consider yourself lucky. See "The Art of
Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli for more. This especially includes love.

~~~
beagle3
> I'm much quicker than I ever was: I catch falling objects mid-air, stop
> other's falls, intercept slips and, in general, am scary quick.

I'm much younger, and definitely not "scary quick", but I did get
significantly better all of a sudden after starting to mind my omega-3 intake.
Could this be related for you as well?

------
MrDresden
If I can be so bold to offer up some of what I have learned in my short
existence (am in my mid thirties), none of which is my own wisdom but simply
cemented in place by my own experiences.

After going through a tough time with a parent in my early twenties, where an
accident involving brain hemorrhaging caused a massive shift in personality
and speech, I can not stress enough how good advice it is to savour and fully
utilize each moment with your loved ones while you can. He ended up passing
away less then a year after the accident.

Get rid of your fomo. There will always be new tech. There will always be
something new. You can't do, see, experience, read, learn it all. Having gone
through my twenties often in crippling fear of being "left behind", I look
back now and see that I enjoyed those years less because of this need to be up
on everything, which just had the oppposite intended effect.

Your health is important no matter your age, your mental health doubly so.
Strive to work smart, not hard. Realize when you are being pushed into a
situation where your health is going to be impacted, and stand your ground
against it. I have gone through three burnouts, each one more serious than the
previous one. One caused a relationship to end. Last one required me to seek
professional assistance (which by the way helped immensely and I now openly
talk to people about without shame). Know your limits, and work on pushing
them in a reasonable manner, but do so on your terms if that is what you want
to do.

Realize how difficult it is to live with another human being for a long time,
and how rare it is to find somebody who genuinenly loves you for who you are
as a person (both the good and the bad) and will stand by your side through
thick and thin (and your own bullshit). Treasure that kind of relationship,
above anything else. Momentary opportunities come and go. Never jepordize what
you have for short time gains.

And be financially smart and frugal. Save. But also live life.

------
LVB
I actively avoid trying to let nostalgia creep in too often. I don’t spend
much time reminiscing, listening to old music, rewatching things, looking at
pictures, etc. This seems to not match what most of my cohort does, but I
recognized a correlation between too much looking back and feeling somber.

------
Simulacra
Trust no one, just because you work well with someone doesn’t mean they like
you.

~~~
mensetmanusman
I take the opposite, trust first, treat others like you want the best for
them.

Be so detached from material goods that it would be hard for someone to hurt
you, intentionally or not.

~~~
meiraleal
Both are the same mindset. Trust but limit the damage is the same as not
really trusting.

------
mr_toad
Turns out that loud music really does damage your hearing.

------
rasengan0
>what would you advise younger people(...your own younger self)

Labels are meaningless; attach at your own peril - Brands, religions,
ideology, all other thought patterns, people - choose local,intrinsic context;
what works is all a crapshoot + past generational gifts anyway.

Keep learning; there's always something new and it never gets old learning new
perspectives

You can endure much more than you think.

Remember all those challenges and struggles you overcame or failed? This one
is no different, but you're still here.

Let go, relax.

Pay attention; your life depends on it.

Stop living in the past; that person/life is different and done or in some
other multiverse. Live now with all it's joys and sorrows.

Outdoors and nature: she always heals

Bonus insight: you become more invisible and that has opportunities!

------
sizzle
With sufficient age, cancer is highly likely to rear its ugly head. After a
certain age, waking up without pain and enjoying the simple things in life
like good food, conversation with family and friends, a laugh, etc. are a gift
and a blessing.

------
caramelsuit
Can't tell you what it's like, that would spoil the surprise. Advice: take
good care of your teeth and skin. Avoid impacts, broken bones or serious
strain injury. Minor injury you receive when young will become more aches and
pains as you age. Keep your back strong and straight. Lift with your legs.
Wear hats and long sleeved shirts when your going to be in the sun for a long
time. Treat your friendships and romances seriously, the embarrassments of
your mistakes will be with you for a long time. Fill your memory with as many
beautiful things as you can, it makes reminiscing more enjoyable. Don't talk
so much!

------
wombatmobile
"I highly recommend getting older! There's less tendency to people-please."

\-- Alanis Morrissette

"As I started getting older, I realized, 'I'm so happy!' I didn't expect this.
I wasn't happy when I was young."

\-- Jane Fonda

------
lucas_membrane
Advice #1: You are what you do every day. Choose to be something good and do
it every day. An organizing principle of time management is that all we have
is our time here. What you do every day should rarely appear urgent and you
may find it difficult, but if it is what you want to be, it sustains focus and
peace of mind.

Advice #2: Associate with people of the highest aspirations who live lives of
character and integrity according to strong moral and ethical standards that
you can admire. Solitary virtue is often futile, and I wish I had given people
less credit for being interesting.

------
ljsocal
1) save/invest $ aggressively. Financial independence has huge benefits in the
near-term and long-term. You don’t need most of the crap you’re buying. 2) if
you choose to have kids, make spending time with them priority #1. There is
nothing more rewarding. 3) immerse yourself in nature frequently (without much
gear) 4) find opportunities to work/volunteer/friend with people from a
diverse array of backgrounds 5) listen:talk 5:1 6) amen to dental care
comments 7) learn continually about a wide array of topics

------
GeekyBear
On romance:

It's better to find someone who likes what you are than try to become
something you're not.

also

Robert A. Heinlein Quote: “It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles
being too tired.”

------
surfsvammel
Make friends. Keep friends. Making new friends get much harder when you are
older.

~~~
cgriswald
Difficulty in making friends as one gets older isn’t actually a result of age,
in my experience. I think as people get older they tend to be in fewer
situations where friends are easily made. If you put an older person in, say,
college, they’ll make friends just as easily as they would have when they were
younger.

~~~
AstralStorm
To a point, no all nighter benders will be possible or at least easy.

And then you'll find much fewer people interesting, and more people annoying.
That's a function of knowing more.

------
J_cst
Try to eat well. I had no 'dietary education' from my family (basically it was
an "eat what you like, when you like") and at 44 I fiscally felt so bad that I
went to my doctor saying "I need to be checked as I think I have something
really bad". I went through a number of checks and I was fine. This was also
worsened as I am not obese, so I did not connect in a first instance my
feeling bad with my eating habits. I decided to loose some weight and I put
myself on a quite silly diet since few months now. I am eating mon-fri one
time every 24 hours. Basically I have a meal a day (a dinner) and any junk
food or sweet has been banned. I have lost weight (and I'm still loosing about
800/1000 grams per week) and I feel great now. My second advice is to pick a
job which aligns with the things you enjoy doing. This will not necessarily
lead to money, but still you will enjoy it. Consider we work the majority of
our time.

~~~
voisin
There is nothing silly about this “diet”. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad
or silly for it. This is how humans evolved. There are dozens of health
benefits to eating once per day (or less). We are chronically over fed and
under nourished. Fasting or OMAD like you describe is about as close to a
cheat code for life as I’ve found.

~~~
J_cst
Thank you for your comment, appreciate it

------
audition
Bill Gates Sr. answered the question this way: I can relate to the answer the
late Bruce Bliven, a former editor of the New Republic, was reported to have
given when someone asked him what it felt like to be an old man. He said, “I
don't feel like an old man. I feel like a young man with something the matter
with him.”

How do you avoid, prevent or postpone getting "something the matter" with you?
I second what others in this thread have said: attend to diet and exercise,
take care not to injure your eyes, ears, back or knees. Diet might be the most
important place to start - have a look at
[https://gamechangersmovie.com/](https://gamechangersmovie.com/)

------
cortesoft
One of the crazy parts about being older is how time feels different. 10 years
ago seems like yesterday, but when I was young that seemed like forever. It
doesn't seem like the world changed much until you actually think about the
details.

------
tomcam
I'm about 60. My early life left me with no confidence that I would make it
this far, so by the time I was 21 I was getting ready to die.

What it's been like to grow old

* My body's in officially lousy shape, but I don't feel much worse than I did at 21. Sure, arthritis makes music harder, and being fat makes it hard to tie my shoes. For some reason, though I know I should feel worse, I don't really.

* When you literally wake up glad to be alive every day, and I have done so for half a century, minor things like your body betraying you or someone else's political leanings take on much less importance.

* I am never, ever bored. There are so many things I want to learn, so many products I want to create. I have never known a programming language so well that it bored me, because I always used them as vehicles to get something interesting done. They are tools to me. Like any craftsperson, good tools are important but they are always subservient to the product.

* I have been fighting a losing battle with weight for 50+ years. It's terrible. I am ashamed that I'm morbidly obese and dependent on diabetes and high blood pressure pills. Every time I go out I'm embarrassed to be fat. Every thin person I see is a rebuke, unless they're smoking. (To me smokers are honorary fat people.) Don't fucking tell me to eat right and exercise right and sleep right. I fucking know it. It's just hard and I never stop trying.

* I have been a horrible insomniac for 55 years. I figured by now there would be a cure for it. A good night of sleep for me is 3 1/2 hours. A bad night of sleep is 20 minutes. 3 1/2 hours is not enough for me to feel good for most of the day but it's enough to get essential work done.

* After a traumatic brain injury when young, my memory went bad. Consequently I have always been a slow learner. I have probably suffered some cognitive slowdowns but I don't notice them at my age. Learning is hard for me now, but it was hard for me at 21. I just have to work harder than anyone else. Fine with me! I chose work I enjoy.

* I still have absolutely no problem pulling all-nighters when the project interests me.

Things I saw that other people didn't seem to see as much

* By the time I was 14 I had observed that SV-type jobs were cyclical. Even though I wasn't tech-oriented then I realized if I ever got into a tech field I'd have to keep up in order to remain relevant. Decades and many millions of dollars later, I still keep up. I have worked for myself for the last 21 years but I still act as if I may need to get a job at Google tomorrow. I still study every night (in my case, Go, py4web, and database infrastructure).

* Whenever I got a job, I assumed things might get bad so I always stayed within bicycling distance in case there was a gas shortage or something.

* I saw that two-income families often contained two people who came home with a need to share their stress, but also take care of the kids. This results in neither one wanting to listen to the other, and the resulting tension harms family life. So I made a deal with my wife that one of us work, and one stay home. Didn't care which one (turned out that I was the worker, and we both like it that way). Also I married someone who understood that sometimes I have to work hard. We planned to be poorer than our friends, but the opposite happened. I was able to get ahead by studying at night and trying out different ideas.

* From a very early age I saw that some people got hit hard by "unexpected" events like high medical expenses or business failures. I knew I would either have to safe very carefully (like Asians, who make up most of my family) or be a good earner. I ended up being a good earner who doesn't save as carefully as he could. Result: I spent $40K/year on insurance premiums and can easily absorb it. I own several houses outright and have no debt.

* I never had a "special" way of treating women I dated. There was never a me-who-buys-flowers vs. a me-who-ignores-her-once-we-get-married. I always dated women I liked to be with during daily activities, like shopping or doing the laundry. I just never take the people close to me for granted. Of course I buy flowers for my wife after being married 30 years, and it's always because they look like good flowers, not because it's a day merchants tell me to buy them.

* I read history. I understand how long empires last. I love America and its values, but I fear the mob. So I own lots of guns and have always lived in places that felt defensible.

* You know those old movies and stories where the person is given a second chance on life and appreciates people around in a new light? I have always been that way. My wife, not so much. So we see our children differently. To me they are enormous treasures and (not recommending this, it's just me) even though they're all adults I live in abject fear that something bad happens to them.

What would I advise younger people to do? Well, my most successful idea, I
think, was to figure out by 25 what my core values were, because everything
comes out of that. In my particular case, it went:

* No one cares about your job more than you do. For me this led to the understanding that I should start my own business. You don't have to and, more important, may not want to! But I feel it's less risky than working for someone else. If you don't do that at least save up for a rainy year (below)

* Be a decent citizen

* Treat people different from me with respect

* Try to admit when I'm wrong

* Treat my kids with at least as much respect as I would treat Bill Gates or a cop or a waiter, and be as polite to them as I would be to anyone else

* Do work that wouldn't embarrass my kids if they told their friends about it

* Being rich is good because it helps with independence and safety buffers, but it's always subordinate to taking care of the people I love

* Expect people to be motivated by their base instincts, and by incentives. People are neither natively good or bad, so be ready for them to be bad. That means understanding your core values and sticking to them

* Take logical risks you can afford and be ready to learn from them

* Feel free to cut harmful family members out of your life. I will guess that I went through more than my share of bad stuff when young. This left me with a very simple rule. Family is important, but it's also what others make of it. I would give family members who harmed me an explanation of why I felt bad, then ghost them if nothing changed. Nothing ever changed. Do I feel bad after they died? Do I feel like I should have connected better with the people who raped or beat or neglected or abused me or accused me of horrible things I didn't do? Absolutely not. I have never regretted removing harmful people from my life, family or not

* When you're evaluating doing something big, the more you like it, the more you should try to talk yourself out of it. You should be super honest about both the potential upsides and the potential downsides. Project what would happen to you a year after the worst or the best happened

* Expect bad things to happen. Easy for me to say now? Sure, but I was totally ready for Covid by the year 2000. Completely. So were observant Mormons and many Chinese people

* Avoid debt

* Have at least a year's living expenses saved in case of unemployment, unrest, etc.

Obviously YMMV, but because I wanted nothing more than to escape from my
childhood home/school life, by 13 I had read autobiographies of famous
achievers and had crystalized these values based on their successes and
mistakes. I developed as a way of escaping the present. It was either that or
kill myself. I'm very glad I didn't kill myself but I needed some logical
reason to have hope.

~~~
tasuki
> I have been a horrible insomniac for 55 years. I figured by now there would
> be a cure for it.

Unless you're really unfortunate, there's a cure for insomnia. It consists of
several simple but not always easy-to-follow rules:
[https://insomniasos.net/](https://insomniasos.net/)

After years of suffering from insomnia, I've started sleeping better 2 weeks
ago.

[Edit: Sorry I know you weren't looking for advice, just can't resist sharing]

~~~
tomcam
Thanks for the share. Interestingly, I began almost the identical program--two
weeks ago. My sleep has gone from about 45 minutes a night to 2.5-4 hours.

I had tried all of these things before, but when I consulted my sleep doctor
he pointed out something that changed my life. Previously I had tried to wake
up at say 6 or 7am, on the theory that if I'm going to bed at 9-10am anyway,
what does it matter if I try to wake up early? It would be horrific either
way.

But he recommended a later wakeup time (10am) and to roll it back a few
minutes a week. That single change made the difference.

Thanks for caring. I've bookmarked the site.

Last night I had a pretty rough time but in general things have looked up a
little each day. Biggest improvement I can remember since trying sleeping
pills, which only work for a month or so on me.

------
Volcacius
My grandma is turning 107 next month. She is still in perfect shape cognitive
wise and in reasonable physical shape for her age. When you have lived for so
long, you have an interesting perspective on things. I think what she would
probably tell you is that the most important thing in life is to be
independent and to be able to adapt to changes. Everything is temporary.
Anything you take for granted right now is gonna be gone at some point. Any
person that is currently in your life is gonna die at some point. Death is
really the only constant, and you have to be okay with that.

------
AndrewOMartin
Echoing some of the advice in this thread, Christopher Hitchens said (possibly
quoting someone else) something along the lines of "It becomes increasingly
obvious that you can't make new old friends".

------
ytNumbers
Avoid becoming addicted to anything (e.g., don't consume unhealthy illicit
substances). Get enough sleep, sunlight, and exercise. Also, make sure you
adopt a healthy diet where you remember to also consume things that will
improve your gut bacteria so that your body thoroughly absorbs all those
healthy nutrients. Of course, if you don't care how long you live, you can
ignore all of the above advice. Some people say they don't want to live
forever, but I've yet to encounter anyone who was happy to exit this world
like a satisfied diner at a restaurant.

------
dave333
Be careful with diet and avoid any extreme diets. I went on a low calorie diet
for a couple of years and lost weight, but I ate a lot of a generic pudding
product that turned out to contain a lot of titanium dioxide that I believe
caused me to get sick with the rare yellow nail syndrome and now I have
compromised lung function rather like CPOD. Another thing that is much more
important than people realize is gut microbiome. Have fun while you can -
don't leave it until later.

------
rcar1046
Be in service to someone or something without expecting anything in return.

For me it is my dog.

~~~
edjrage
Unless you don't like your dog, this ironically just sounds like an excuse for
caring about no one but yourself.

~~~
thih9
I don't understand. Could you elaborate?

How I see it, taking care of a pet usually requires lots of effort and
selflessness. You need to make sacrifices and stay consistent. E.g. with a
dog, sometimes you have to go for a walk even if you'd prefer to stay at home
and watch TV. All this seems to me the opposite of taking care about only
yourself.

------
james-skemp
Surprised a search for caffeine doesn't find anything on the page.

Having given up soda around college (and never getting into coffee, and rarely
drinking alcohol), almost 20 years later I'm glad I have the ability to drink
just a little bit and get a good short burst of energy.

Treat caffeine as you'd treat aspirin, or bandages, especially when you're
younger and you really do have an efficient power generator, and ability to do
more with less. You'll have less of a tolerance you need to beat to get the
same effect when you're older.

~~~
siberianbear
I can't speak to caffeine, I'm still trying to kill that demon myself.

However, cutting out alcohol has increased my health and energy significantly.
In your twenties you can drink every day, wake up at 8:00 and have a normal
day. In your forties, that catches up with you.

------
sjg007
Fund your retirement.

Don't waste time with romantic partners who don't love and respect you.

Don't waste time with people who don't have your best interests at heart.

Get as much education as you can handle and ask for help along the way.

------
simonblack
You still feel the same as when you are in your twenties. In fact in answer to
the the question "How old do you feel?" I always feel like I'm about 22.

However ..... for some reason you can't do as much. Some jobs that you could
do all day once upon a time now leave you exhausted after an hour or so. Those
hills seem steeper than they look. That package is heavier than you thought it
was. I suppose I'm trying to say that your body hasn't maintained the same
youthfulness as your head has.

------
sys_64738
Don't listen to other people.

~~~
jeffrallen
Also: Don't ask for advice on HN.

------
boldfish
Things you will regret - not having had enough sex, not spending enough time
with friends, not putting money aside for your pension. You will also wish
you'd been kinder to your parents. You will wish you'd learned how to be kind
to yourself and you'll always regret not taking better care of your body.

------
JohnL4
(1) Trust your instincts. Really listen to that inner voice.

(2) I forget.

No wait! I remember! Be really careful who you have kids with (see item (1)).
Most mistakes you can walk away from, but when an innocent human life (or two)
is involved, you don't get to just reset.

(3) Bonus free advice (NOW how much would you pay?): Invest for the long term.
Consider total return. Don't try to time the stock market.

------
EvanAnderson
Don't put off experiences. Thinking "I'll do that later" when you have an
opportunity now is a recipe for never having that experience.

I'm 43 and I recently had a reasonably bad bike wreck. The recovery time for
cuts and bruises really surprised me, compared with inline skating injuries in
my 20s. I can definitely tell the body isn't working as well as it did.

------
was8309
keep a journal in plain text

~~~
wait_a_minute
I started doing this recently for fun about a year ago, and boy am I glad I
started doing it. Will do it forever from now on. It's fun revisiting entries.

------
euroderf
63yo here. As you get older, a lot of things get easier. For example public
speaking. It's terrifying when you're young. But at this point I consider
myself well-read enough that I could talk to any group of people about any
topic for ten minutes without breaking a sweat (or being paralyzed by fear and
indecision).

------
NaOH
What stands out to me as I’ve aged are the people I’ve known, the memories of
experiences with them, and the times I’ve given and received the kinds of help
which benefit lives. None of these things compel me to words of reminiscence,
but remembering them brings feelings of grace and gratitude.

------
xyzal
I hope this does not come across as too sentimental.

I am 38 years old, and I can see my parents getting more frail every day.

Talk to them while you can. I could not shake off the teenager-like attitude
of being too busy to spend quality time with them for far too long and now I
regret it.

------
dudekula
As I got older, the list of important things/questions that matter to me got
smaller and smaller, finally left with only one question, "how do we really
explain a mind?" afraid that I may not have an answer in my lifetime!

------
technological
One thing I say is have zero expectations of anything and everything then your
life will be great.

When i stopped having expectations then I did not add any complains when
someone i loved did not behave/respond the way I like it and was happy.

------
unstatusthequo
Wear a mask. Most of the “young” I see don’t seem to care, think it won’t
affect them, or are fine getting the ‘Rona because they are confident they
will weather it. Help other young people learn that it’s not all about them.

~~~
copperx
I thought you were speaking figuratively at first. Wouldn't surprise me for
someone to say that.

------
aidenn0
Optimistic failures are so common, that I assume every idea/business/etc. will
fail, and I'm right most of the time.

That doesn't mean _you_ will fail, but it means I'm not going to be
particularly excited.

------
gpsx
I don't feel nearly as smart or "outstanding" as I did when I was younger. But
I don't think it is because I have gotten much less smart or outstanding. I
think my perception has become more accurate.

------
gaahrdner
Your question seems to be mostly concerned about the human body, so you
probably know the answer; eat healthily most of the time, exercise regularly,
make sure you regularly get good sleep.

Oh, and wear sunscreen.

------
pmoriarty
Seek out mentors, make connections and keep them. These are often more
valuable than technical skills. Of course, making such connections and
acquiring mentors is a lot easier if you're effective at what you do or
distinguish yourself in some way, so skills and accomplishments are also very
important.

Seek out experts in the fields you're interested and start a correspondence
with them and meet them if possible. Ask their advice about things that
interest you and that they are experts in.

Many times in your life you will be faced with a choice between the hard road
and the easy road. Most people take the easy road to mediocrity. You can
further distinguish yourself, learn a lot more, gain more skills, and grow
tougher by choosing the hard road.

Learn something thoroughly. If you are an expert at something you will be in
demand. Generalists and jacks-of-all-trades get a nice, broad perspective and
can make connections between fields that narrow specialists can't, but usually
it's more feasible for specialists to broaden their horizons than for a
generalist to become a real expert, especially later in life.

Be persistent. If you can master the skill of doing that which will improve
your life and the lives of others no matter how unpleasant or boring that task
is, especially over the long haul, then you will accomplish much more than
most, who tend to easily give up and move on to something else.

Related to this, whenever you start something that will take a long time to
finish, expect that there will be boring, frustrating periods where everything
will seem hopeless. Plan well ahead of time what you'll do to overcome them
when you'll encounter them. This is a place where your mentors and experts in
the field can help, as you can ask them for advice when you run in to a
roadblock.

Surround yourself with people who bring you up, not try to drag you down to
their level or who are completely unmotivated. Always try to be around people
who are smarter than you, who are better than you at something you're
interested in, and who you can learn from and be inspired by.

Don't study for the test, but value knowledge for its own sake, to learn
useful skills, and to improve yourself. This connects to the next crucial
point:

Read A LOT. You can gain many lifetimes of experience through books. Real
books, not blog post and tweets. It would not hurt to start by reading through
"the classics", but often lists of classics overlook much excellent foreign
literature, so try to seek out the best of what different cultures have to
offer.

Travel (when the plague is over). Few things can open your mind to what is
possible, let you meet fantastically interesting people, have unforgettable
experiences, learn about other cultures and ways of being, and open up new
opportunities for you than travel.

On the subject of travel, I would advise you to go off the beaten path and
avoid super touristy areas. Stay in hostels.. it's a fantastic way to meet
people and can save you a ton of money too. Don't try to see too much at once,
and try to stay in one place for a good week or two, if you can, instead of
doing 7 countries in a weekend.

Once you've traveled a while and got a taste of many different countries
you're bound to find a favorite. Try living there for a year or two. You'll
get a perspective on the place that a quick visit will not give you, and let
you use it as a base for exploring other places in the area, and you'll gain
even more valuable connections there that you couldn't as a mere tourist.

Learn some foreign languages. This is yet another way to make great
connections and get to appreciate other places and cultures at a level you
couldn't if you were just monolingual. It'll also open you up to the
literature of other countries on a level you just can't get by reading it in
translation. Many books don't even have translations, so you'll be at an
advantage there too.

Learn to like yourself, enjoy your own company, and be your own best friend.
Always seek out new subjects to learn and new teachers to learn from. A great
teacher can make anything interesting.

Exercise and take thorough stock of what you're eating to make sure you don't
have any nutritional imbalances. This can greatly affect your mood and energy
levels, and ultimately let you live a lot longer and with many fewer
debilitating conditions than you'd have otherwise. A sure way to physical
misery is to not take care of your body.

Finally, try to help people and be as useful to them as possible. Apart from
this being the right thing to do, it's also a lot more fulfilling than being
purely selfish, and people are usually glad to be of help to someone who's
helped them. So by helping others you'll be helping yourself.

------
tubularhells
Older people THINK they can remember what it was like to be young.

------
guerrilla
Have you seen "Being 97"? [1]

[1].
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4)

------
DanBC
1) Start your pension planning as early as possible.

2) Maintain friendships outside your main relationship.

3) Spend time with your children.

4) Look after your physical and mental health. Eat good food. Get exercise.

------
alea_iacta_est
My only advice, don't listen to advices, nobody has figured out this weird
thing we call life.

~~~
loco5niner
Not true. You can learn from experience, either your own or others (the latter
is better).

------
bitxbit
Taking an hour-long walk during lunch is the best thing I ever did for my
health and work productivity.

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intricatedetail
Remove all negative people from your life. I wish I had done this from school
time onwards...

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phil21
Man, I'm not even that old yet - but feel old, I guess. Pushing 40.

At this point of my life, I can definitely say my outlook will change in 20
years. 20 years ago I would have thought my belief systems to be set in stone
more or less. If this is true, you will miss a whole lot of personal growth.
It may depend on the person but I've certainly developed a whole lot more
empathy and benefit of the doubt for people I would not have had in the past.
I've also learned the world is a whole lot harsher and nicer than many would
report, and humanity/society is a very complex thing. 99.9% of the world wants
to hug you, not hit you, is something I always try to keep in mind.

A lot of this is based on what you expose yourself to though, so I've noted
it's pretty easy to "grow" in the opposite direction if you never get out of
your "early 20's" bubble of high school friends, or if you get "stuck" in a
such a rut early on in life too scared to make the next step.

The largest lesson I think I've learned is that almost all my regrets have to
do with inaction vs. action regardless of outcome. I highly regret many things
I was too lazy/scared/talked out of doing, but even the things that turned out
(at the moment) absolutely horrible that I actively participated in with my
best effort I do not regret now in the least. At the worst some were learning
experiences, most turned into (via completely unexpected ways) amazing
experiences and opportunities. Note that this can mean almost anything -
relationships, work, life experiences, travel, etc.

I guess all I can really give as 100% "for sure" advice is I have never
regretted anything I've truly given 100% of my effort into. I've only
regretted the moments where I've half-assed something. And this is regardless
of outcomes. If I can go to my grave saying I did my best and tried to make my
tiny corner of the world better - I'll be quite happy.

That and the mundane daily positive personal habits you can get into the
earlier the better. You make yourself a far more attractive partner if you
take basic care of yourself like doctor and dentist visits, basic daily
hygiene, and at least making an attempt at eating healthy/being active. Others
have covered this far more than I have, but I certainly endorse their advice.
I simply wanted to point out it goes beyond your own personal health - your
health is important to others in your life and for me at least it was easy to
forget that for some time.

Also something I haven't seen said a lot here - surrounding yourself early
with positive friends who share your values/aspirations in life is exceedingly
important. I firmly believe in the "you are the average of your 5 best
friends" theory.

------
sjg007
Vote.

------
tompark
I had this same question after being surprised when I needed reading glasses
and when single strands of mutant hair sprouted from various places (eyebrows,
neck, etc). My parents passed when I was a young adult so I didn't have many
older people around to ask about these kinds of topics.

You focused specifically on physical health. Others have given good advice
(teeth, hearing, etc). I'd add several other points:

\-- At around 50, your chances of getting cancer hit an inflection point on
the "hockey stick" growth curve [1], so you need to get regular (annual)
screenings. A good health plan is helpful; when I was on Kaiser HMO they were
really good about following up on this. [1]
[https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-
professional/cancer-...](https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-
professional/cancer-statistics/incidence/age)

\-- Exercise doesn't have to be intensive to work well. I rarely go to a gym
now; when I was younger, the overhead of going to the gym made me think I had
to workout for an hour or more, but in my case it backfired, bc it led to a
gut reaction of "ugh" whenever I thought of the gym. I'm pretty committed to
hiking, so now I walk outdoors (mineral sunscreen, of course) for an hour per
day and that's enough. If you can choose to live somewhere where you can do
this year-round then do it. That alone is transformative. When I first started
hiking, my knees would hurt, especially going downhill, but after a few
painful hikes, it eased up and now many years later my knees never bother me.

\-- Highly-suggested weight training books (e.g. Starting Strength) insist on
free weights, barbells. I find that 30 min of body weight circuits (and
dumbbells) 3x/wk is plenty. Just get into the habit. The benefits accrue over
time, whereas you'll see peers your age or younger neglect this and that
neglect also accrues over time. Most people don't add 25 lbs of belly fat in
one year, it's more like 2-5 lbs per year over decades.

\-- Most my friends are younger than me and alcohol is still a big part of
socializing, but as I get older I dislike the effects more. Not that I drank
much in the first place, but now I've cut back even more. On average not even
once per month, and never more than 2 drinks per occasion.

\-- Diet is obviously important. Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food. Not too
much. Mostly plants." I still eat too much meat but include greens in every
meal. My advice is to cook. As I got older I started cooking at home more.
Over the course of a decade I eventually worked up to cooking every meal at
home. It helps to establish the habit if you have someone (spouse, family) to
cook for, but now I have the habit, it's easy to cook for myself. When you
cook, you can eliminate added sugar. All processed food has sugar in it, so I
cook everything from scratch. It sounds like a pain, and when I was younger I
would never have imagined myself doing it, but when you practice it, you can
do it quickly. I eliminated sugar on weekdays. If you follow David Sinclair's
longevity advice, you'd cut out sugar entirely, but I still partake on
weekends.

\-- So far I've been super lucky and have no major health issues/struggles.
I'm "old", but not elderly. I still do long distance treks. People I meet are
always surprised at my age and energy level. The biggest tell is white hair,
or dry scraggly hair. I used to think I'd be interested to hear health issues
from people in the 70-90 age range, but I suspect it's so different for
everyone that it wouldn't be that useful. I believe there's enough longevity
advice out there that if you pay attention to the right sources then you can
see what's coming up and what you should be doing.

------
tluyben2
Not too old yet, 45. But learned many things already because I did a lot of
things. Hope to learn a lot more; let’s do this again in 10 years here.
Anyway;

If you have enough money, stop trying to get more and live your life instead
with your family and friends. Apparently it is really hard for people who
gathered a few 100k/million (depending where you live) to just let it be and
enjoy. Moreso (as I understand) in the US than in the EU. In the EU you hardly
need money to begin with depending where you live and want to live; Where I
live, all my neighbours live of around 500/mo. As a wfh software dev, 500 is
literally a few hours work. And that would be me alone working from home; my
wife does too... The always trying to get more and buy crap turns out, when
you get older (and friends/family starting to die off/get ill) you understand
it really does not matter at all. But then it might already be too late to
correct it, even with all your cash. It is hilarious to me to read all these
‘time managed’, mostly Americans on here; every second of their day as
efficiently managed as they can. And for what? Go outside, walk in a forest,
talk to strangers; Running the same time managed wheel every day; that I find
the real waste of time trapped in your own rat cage. I needed to grow older
for this though to realise some of it; I never did the timemanagement thing
(as I always believed it is sheer insanity; but I guess that is a matter of
what you think counts as valuable; I enjoy walking in nature, I do not enjoy
spending time in the gym efficiently and eating soylent to save a few hours in
my day; those hours are valuably spent on thinking in the forest, chatting
with friends in the sun on the square etc; then I use 4-5 hours to write code,
which I already worked out in my head while walking; for backend and firmware
coding, that is far more efficient than just ramming in as many chars as you
can and then trying to run it; also something I learned as I got older; I am
much faster in delivering than my young colleagues; not because I am smarter
but experience and thinking shit through before just hammering it in and
letting unittests tell it is wrong; I find that an actual utter waste of time)
however I did miss important events I should not have missed because I was
working for a few extra bucks. Events that will never repeat.

Ofcourse we are lucky to be able to work from home and people who do not want
to move to a different/cheaper place obviously have less choices, but also
that gets easier when getting older, at least in my experience. The city
becomes less interesting; freedom and space more. With covid we saw here that
indeed people are not _that_ married to their cities and their cramped
appartments: lot of houses sold that were empty for years; now suddenly they
have almost no cost of living (even going to a restaurant for a complete meal
and drinks costs 6 euros pp if you fancy that) and space to breath. So the
money earned in the ratrace suddenly might get you well into retirement and
then there are state pensions and hospitals are free anyway. Especially if you
have a house or mortgage in the city, you can sell it and that’ll keep you
good for 20-40 years if you don’t buy rubbish. Or you can rent it out and you
are good basically forever. Not that I like that personally but I know many
who did exactly that so they could retire at <40.

Physically; do fasting and weights; really helps energy levels and pushes back
on loss of muscle mass which will happen when you get older. I notice that
people who focus less on their wasteline and more on bulk make it far longer
in a far more robust way. Skinny muscleless ex runners/cardios don’t do so
well when going 80. Obviously do not get too fat, do not smoke/vape(although,
ofcourse my entire village smokes 3-4 packs/day and the elderly are in their
80s/90s puffing away while sitting in the full sun for hours without
sunscreen, but that is just, I guess, survivors bias), take care of your teeth
and when you feel something weird anywhere, go to the doctor. People wait way
too long, especially men.

Edit; a more depressing thing of getting older, for me, was seeing how
incompetent, lazy and untrustworthy people are. We tolerate blatant lies from
ceo’s, cto’s and our colleagues almost every day. From small ones (I will work
this weekend for this one time and then ‘my computer was broken but
miraculously works again on monday’) to potentially company breaking lies by
sales from vendors ‘yes this feature is done and delivered’; 2 weeks before
beta; ‘oh did he say it was? no that is done somewhere in 2021 but we do not
know when yet). I see it everywhere now; it was always there but it starts to
really annoy me now.

------
aaron695
You will become a Conservative.

I have no idea what that means other than you'd probably hate your future self
so give people around you a break for their values you disagree with.

~~~
copperx
You can hate the inevitable change of the world and still embrace it. Doing
otherwise is to be in denial.

