10 candid perspectives from people who are 30 and over about the challenges of growing older

Aug 28, 2023

By: Abhiram Sajai

Dealing with being older

When we're young, we often feel like the present lasts forever and things will take a lot of time to change. However, as time passes, we realize that we have to confront a lot of realities, some good and some bad. It's up to us to decide how to adapt...

1. Confronting impermanence

For me, it's coming to grips with the impermanence of the moment. I feel like we're hard-wired to operate under the assumption that we always have more time. But windows of opportunity do close, permanently. People you neglect will leave, never to re...

2. Weak joints

Random bulls**t health issues that prevent you from doing the things you want. u/PuzzleheadedRow7118. Sometimes knee sprains and injuries appear from years of neglected minor injuries that are now escalated. Be sure to get some resistance band work...

3. Losing loved ones

Seeing my parents getting significantly older and losing elder family members. u/Agirlwholikesreddit. That is a tough period, I agree. May I say, that after a while, I got past that. As Lucien says, "Everybody dies." I am now the oldest in my kla...

4. Perception of time

Time goes by faster. u/thedeathmachine. The trick to this is to keep finding new things to do. There have been months that I have done nothing but work at my boring job and spent the evenings watching repetitive content on YouTube, and other months where I...

5. Sustaining friendships

Maintaining friendships and/or developing new ones especially if you relocate or travel extensively for work. Not impossible just not as easy as teens and twenties. u/Catgurl You really have to be intentional about it. I've (39F) been single off a...

6. Hair thinning

As a dude, hair thins out on top. Apparently, it migrates to your nose/ears/eyebrows. Not a ton, just a wild hair here and there. I have to pluck my eyebrow. The other is being sore. Sleeping wrong can ruin your morning. Who thought resting could make ...

7. Missed opportunities

Realizing all the opportunities you missed. u/EsprestonEsquire This is the big one that’s up there below watching your parents get older and more helpless. You realize that the common phrase 'it’s never too late to x' is a bullsh*t phrase. It...

8. Losing fascination with the world

I'm a big gamer and book reader and one of the worst for me is that there's a lot less sense of wonder and discovery to be felt. The past few years have been especially rough [praise Baldur's Gate 3 for being the best game to come out in probabl...

9. Not understanding technology

It's really easy to fall behind on technology. Like, scarily easy. Over the last few years I've had to make an effort to set a little time aside and make sure I'm keeping up. Otherwise, it's too easy to lean on technologies I've alread...

10. Young people assume they know better

Losing relevance. Young people act like older people are clueless about things... and with regard to pop culture, they're usually right. But that's because culture loses relevance after you've seen it change for 50 years or so. I'm sure som...