7 ms·

At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the s

by beat 10y ago

At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this is all there is, and they're going to ride out their remaining years doing as little as possible other than wallowing in regret and yelling at kids to get off their damn lawn. It's sad and terrible. I can hardly bear to be around a lot of people who were so vital when they were young. The others, though... they see the clock on the wall. They know that, at best, life is more than half over for them already. They have a limited amount of time. They're the ones ticking things off their bucket list. They understand their priorities. Now, you may not understand just how important it is to them to start a new business, or grow the perfect tomato, or travel through China, but they get it in a deep way, much deeper than most 20-somethings can imagine. You really, really want to work with people like this if you can. They're brilliant.

adam12 10y ago
I think it's more complicated than that. I often feel beaten and defeated. That doesn't stop me from being a life long learner. I'm sure there are people who are perfectly content with their lives and they just don't feel the need to learn new things.
- beat 10y ago
  Well, sure, it's an oversimplification. But I think it's a pretty valid one. It's not just about learning new things (you don't even need to learn to be on the winning side - I know artists who are driven to create, who have already refined their technique and are focused on creativity now).
  - adamredwoods 10y ago
    Let's try not to oversimplify other people's problems. The "beaten and defeated" could be dealing with issues we know nothing about.
    - beat 10y ago
      Or they could be people I've known for twenty or thirty years.
beachstartup 10y ago
part of the problem is by the time you're 50, you've had 30 years of adult life to accumulate bad decisions. a lot of people are saddled with obligations they never actually wanted. :(
- beat 10y ago
  Yeah, this. :( My ability to stop working for The Man and start my own company has been severely hampered by the need to pay my mortgage and kids in college and stuff.
  - Unbeliever69 10y ago
    Trust me when I say that this is all fear. Multiple times I have uprooted family despite all discomfort, odds, safety nets, etc. to pursue a passion. First it was moving out of state to attend graduate school. Second, it was leaving a 6 figure career to pursue my dream. Downsizing was necessary. I had to question my values about money, things, accumulation, happiness. NEVER sell yourself short. If you are passionate you will find a way. Check out these guys. They have a great book and a movie. http://www.theminimalists.com/ http://www.theminimalists.com/
    - preordained 10y ago
      It's risk/reward. For lots of people, uprooting, changing their job/family circumstance at X time is too much risk--and a lot of people are probably right in that regard. There is no assurance that your bold venture will succeed, despite your planning, ambition, etc. And if it was all but certain, it wouldn't be very bold, it'd just be common sense.
    - beat 10y ago
      Depends on your family. I kinda want to stay married, which limits my forward acceleration. It's a matter of finding the right compromise point. Didn't say it was going to be easy!
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      You have had a very supportive family, as well as rich opportunities. Congratulations.
kordless 10y ago
While I see the clock on the wall, I also remember that it really doesn't take long for something wonderful to transpire if it's ready to do so. Time is timeless, if you live it properly. Being "defeated" is just life asking you to be a bit more present in what you are doing. Picking up the tools at the end of a long day of remodeling the bathroom, for example. Worrying the clock is running out is counter to being present in anything done properly. I'm 50 and if anything, I've learned I'm not stopping to worry about the constraints my life gifts me at times.
DanielBMarkham 10y ago
What I really enjoy about being 51 is being able to understand both extremes you describe -- as well as being able to understand and remember what many other segments of life was like. It gives you quite a broad view! At times it feels like standing on a mountain and seeing a vast landscape that you've crossed to get here -- and the mountain path ahead that leads to new heights. There's also the joy of playing to type for the kids. So many times, they look at you as if you were some weird creature from a zoo. It's quite funny because you can get away with a lot. Hell, they don't know. I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age, but quite frankly, if you started out way ahead of the norm, by the time you hit your 50s and 60s you're still going to be on par or ahead of most of the population anyway. So when a dear friend that's in their 20s or 30s asks me how I'm doing, I have quite a bit of fun describing some sort of horrible body issues -- until they realize I'm pulling their leg. And when I hit my 60s and 70s, if I last that long, you can be sure I'll be screwing with people who might think I have dementia. Screw 'em. More fun times ahead.
- brudgers 10y ago
  At 51, I've learned to enjoy the fact that there are about as many different kinds of people in the world as there are people. A surprisingly vast number of them are surprisingly intelligent if I am just willing to listen and learn and have an open mind. Anyway, getting older tends to beat the alternatives.
- greenhatman 10y ago
  >I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age. I wonder if this will just be true for your generation. Because of computers and the programming industry only really taking off when you were already a few years into your career. I can imagine that someone who started their career with programming early and just continues with it might just keep widening the gap between them and newcomers. Which might only change if there is another shakeup in our lifetimes. My boss from my previous job is in his mid forties and extremely good technically. Intimidatingly so. I imagine I can become the same if I keep going at it the way I do now. I'm 31.
  - deleted 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tps5 10y ago
At 24, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those that don't.
- ytNumbers 10y ago
  There is only one thing in the world worse than being witty, and that is not being witty. I wish I hadn't said that.
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    No, there is hipster irony. (Try this on at varying meta-levels.)
- brudgers 10y ago
  Husserl noticed it before you...and before me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other
anigbrowl 10y ago
That's a bit simplistic. Certainly there are people who defeated and bitter due to shallowness and lack of imagination vs those with the will and wisdom to pursue their objectives effectively. But it seems to me that you're identifying a philosophical dichotomy within your professional class. But besides the philosophical divide, people are sorted by circumstantial conditions, depending on what good/bad luck they've had, decisions they've made, and economic situations they've experienced. Life might force people to choose between supporting their family and pursuing their dreams, or their dreams might depend on capital or social resources that they have no idea how to acquire, or they might be saddled with some burdensome health condition. It's not simply a matter of having failed to make a necessary psychological adjustment to take charge of one's own life. There are lots of people out there that are fully aware of their situation and poorly positioned to do anything about it.
- beat 10y ago
  It's not just my professional class, though. I've observed this with friends in wildly varying professions - some poor, some very financially successful. But the ones who are down have sort of peaked out on their ambition. Either it's too late for their careers, or they think it is. They have kids hitting adulthood that make them feel like they've failed as parents. It can really suck.
_pmf_ 10y ago
> They decide this is all there is, and they're going to ride out their remaining years doing as little as possible other than wallowing in regret and yelling at kids to get off their damn lawn. It's sad and terrible. Am 36 and on this road; can confirm.
sireat 10y ago
How do you prioritize on medium to long term plans? At 40+ I acutely realize how little time is left and how little one can accomplish. Every day I am reminded on how quickly time passes and hevel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes) of it all. Again, I enjoy the little things: the random coffee shop with my SO, my kids' smile, the view from the bridge when I am biking and so on. But starting anything with longer term implications seems so useless. Silly example: let's say I decided to learn to sing. I am truly tone-deaf and hilariously bad at singing. Maybe after years of constant practice I could approach some sort of basic proficiency but it would achieved at a cost of forsaking so many other experiences. We have so little time that I have trouble making longer plans. None of us have 10,000 years that Bill Murray had in Groundhog Day.
- smhost 10y ago
  I think you should consider prioritizing medium-to-long term plans that will maximize the number of enjoyable little things you will have at the end of your life. And about the particular example of learning to sing, about 2 years of deliberate practice with a good teacher will get you where you want to be, so, not that big of a commitment in the grand scheme of things, I'd say.
- JKCalhoun 10y ago
  52 here, I put off things I know I can do in my old age and focus on the things requiring my physical health. So I am planning a PCT section hike with my daughter this summer but collecting plastic models to assemble when I'm 80. :-)
chuamo 10y ago
51? Most men die at 25... we just don't bury them until they are 70. -- Benjamin Franklin
- phs318u 10y ago
  :-)
jaredcwhite 10y ago
Thank you for this. I'm in my mid-30s and terrified that when I get older I'll turn into the beaten & defeated type that I myself have observed in some older people. I guess maybe my fear of losing my mojo is a hopeful indicator that I'll avoid such a fate. :)
kome 10y ago
I am beaten at 30, sigh.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
I've always thought of it this way. There are the people who want to "Be" something (writer, entrepreneur, etc) and those who want to "Have Been" something. The ones who want to have been always seem to be the ones who turn out to be not what they wanted because they've spent all their time thinking about how great it'll have been to be something than actually doing what they should have done to have been something. Whew. Still with me?
- hikarudo 10y ago
  Totally. I think of this as "people who want to do something", and "people who want to be someone."
BigChiefSmokem 10y ago
So true, I started to become the latter when I turned 30 (now 33). People say I'm still relatively young and need to relax but I vehemently disagree with them. Life feels like it could end any second now. Time is of the essence.
Waterluvian 10y ago
My dad's been working on his startup thats gone nowhere for a decade now. Reading your comment just instantly and drastically shifted how I perceive the value of him doing that.
cowardlydragon 10y ago
Yes they are hard at work: - destroy the housing market... check - ruin higher education... check - destroy democracy ... check - bankrupt social security and medicare... in progress, but basically a foregone conclusion - destroy all jobs for the current generation ... check
- justavoice 10y ago
  wow, you see nothing good in the prior generation? Must be a dark place you live in
- phs318u 10y ago
  I think you're being a little unfair. The world is a large system of systems. I'm going to use the analogy of a set of spinning tops of varying sizes and speeds. For the longest while it has seemed that most of these spinning tops have been quite stable, whizzing around perfectly balanced - and they have. So much so, that people have forgotten that there is any other state. Recently however there have been changes - small initially - that have perturbed some of these tops so that they are now wobbling and bumping into other tops, cascading perturbations. Perturbations are scary and - no surprise - hard to predict where they'll go. No one really understands (though they may try and guess) what's going to happen next. The current state of the tops seems to bear no relation to how we started. How did we get here? What can we do? Meanwhile, well meaning but largely ignorant "spinners of tops" are busily trying to restore the earlier balanced state by various means, not realising that they are only adding to the chaos. I guess what I'm trying to say is, very complex systems can have emergent complex (even chaotic) behaviours not originally anticipated. Outputs no longer bear a recognisable relation to inputs. Or even simpler, never ascribe to malice[1] what is often the result of ignorance/incompetence. [1] Though clearly, there are some malicious actors who are now exploiting the chaos and introducing perturbations to their own short advantage.

by beat 10y ago

adam12 10y ago

I think it's more complicated than that. I often feel beaten and defeated. That doesn't stop me from being a life long learner. I'm sure there are people who are perfectly content with their lives and they just don't feel the need to learn new things.

beat 10y ago
Well, sure, it's an oversimplification. But I think it's a pretty valid one. It's not just about learning new things (you don't even need to learn to be on the winning side - I know artists who are driven to create, who have already refined their technique and are focused on creativity now).
- adamredwoods 10y ago
  Let's try not to oversimplify other people's problems. The "beaten and defeated" could be dealing with issues we know nothing about.
  - beat 10y ago
    Or they could be people I've known for twenty or thirty years.

beachstartup 10y ago

part of the problem is by the time you're 50, you've had 30 years of adult life to accumulate bad decisions. a lot of people are saddled with obligations they never actually wanted. :(

beat 10y ago
Yeah, this. :( My ability to stop working for The Man and start my own company has been severely hampered by the need to pay my mortgage and kids in college and stuff.
- Unbeliever69 10y ago
  Trust me when I say that this is all fear. Multiple times I have uprooted family despite all discomfort, odds, safety nets, etc. to pursue a passion. First it was moving out of state to attend graduate school. Second, it was leaving a 6 figure career to pursue my dream. Downsizing was necessary. I had to question my values about money, things, accumulation, happiness. NEVER sell yourself short. If you are passionate you will find a way. Check out these guys. They have a great book and a movie. http://www.theminimalists.com/ http://www.theminimalists.com/
  - preordained 10y ago
    It's risk/reward. For lots of people, uprooting, changing their job/family circumstance at X time is too much risk--and a lot of people are probably right in that regard. There is no assurance that your bold venture will succeed, despite your planning, ambition, etc. And if it was all but certain, it wouldn't be very bold, it'd just be common sense.
  - beat 10y ago
    Depends on your family. I kinda want to stay married, which limits my forward acceleration. It's a matter of finding the right compromise point. Didn't say it was going to be easy!
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    You have had a very supportive family, as well as rich opportunities. Congratulations.

kordless 10y ago

While I see the clock on the wall, I also remember that it really doesn't take long for something wonderful to transpire if it's ready to do so. Time is timeless, if you live it properly. Being "defeated" is just life asking you to be a bit more present in what you are doing. Picking up the tools at the end of a long day of remodeling the bathroom, for example. Worrying the clock is running out is counter to being present in anything done properly. I'm 50 and if anything, I've learned I'm not stopping to worry about the constraints my life gifts me at times.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago

What I really enjoy about being 51 is being able to understand both extremes you describe -- as well as being able to understand and remember what many other segments of life was like. It gives you quite a broad view! At times it feels like standing on a mountain and seeing a vast landscape that you've crossed to get here -- and the mountain path ahead that leads to new heights. There's also the joy of playing to type for the kids. So many times, they look at you as if you were some weird creature from a zoo. It's quite funny because you can get away with a lot. Hell, they don't know. I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age, but quite frankly, if you started out way ahead of the norm, by the time you hit your 50s and 60s you're still going to be on par or ahead of most of the population anyway. So when a dear friend that's in their 20s or 30s asks me how I'm doing, I have quite a bit of fun describing some sort of horrible body issues -- until they realize I'm pulling their leg. And when I hit my 60s and 70s, if I last that long, you can be sure I'll be screwing with people who might think I have dementia. Screw 'em. More fun times ahead.

brudgers 10y ago
At 51, I've learned to enjoy the fact that there are about as many different kinds of people in the world as there are people. A surprisingly vast number of them are surprisingly intelligent if I am just willing to listen and learn and have an open mind. Anyway, getting older tends to beat the alternatives.
greenhatman 10y ago
>I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age. I wonder if this will just be true for your generation. Because of computers and the programming industry only really taking off when you were already a few years into your career. I can imagine that someone who started their career with programming early and just continues with it might just keep widening the gap between them and newcomers. Which might only change if there is another shakeup in our lifetimes. My boss from my previous job is in his mid forties and extremely good technically. Intimidatingly so. I imagine I can become the same if I keep going at it the way I do now. I'm 31.
- deleted 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tps5 10y ago

At 24, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those that don't.

ytNumbers 10y ago
There is only one thing in the world worse than being witty, and that is not being witty. I wish I hadn't said that.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  No, there is hipster irony. (Try this on at varying meta-levels.)
brudgers 10y ago
Husserl noticed it before you...and before me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other

anigbrowl 10y ago

That's a bit simplistic. Certainly there are people who defeated and bitter due to shallowness and lack of imagination vs those with the will and wisdom to pursue their objectives effectively. But it seems to me that you're identifying a philosophical dichotomy within your professional class. But besides the philosophical divide, people are sorted by circumstantial conditions, depending on what good/bad luck they've had, decisions they've made, and economic situations they've experienced. Life might force people to choose between supporting their family and pursuing their dreams, or their dreams might depend on capital or social resources that they have no idea how to acquire, or they might be saddled with some burdensome health condition. It's not simply a matter of having failed to make a necessary psychological adjustment to take charge of one's own life. There are lots of people out there that are fully aware of their situation and poorly positioned to do anything about it.

beat 10y ago
It's not just my professional class, though. I've observed this with friends in wildly varying professions - some poor, some very financially successful. But the ones who are down have sort of peaked out on their ambition. Either it's too late for their careers, or they think it is. They have kids hitting adulthood that make them feel like they've failed as parents. It can really suck.

_pmf_ 10y ago

> They decide this is all there is, and they're going to ride out their remaining years doing as little as possible other than wallowing in regret and yelling at kids to get off their damn lawn. It's sad and terrible. Am 36 and on this road; can confirm.

sireat 10y ago

How do you prioritize on medium to long term plans? At 40+ I acutely realize how little time is left and how little one can accomplish. Every day I am reminded on how quickly time passes and hevel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes) of it all. Again, I enjoy the little things: the random coffee shop with my SO, my kids' smile, the view from the bridge when I am biking and so on. But starting anything with longer term implications seems so useless. Silly example: let's say I decided to learn to sing. I am truly tone-deaf and hilariously bad at singing. Maybe after years of constant practice I could approach some sort of basic proficiency but it would achieved at a cost of forsaking so many other experiences. We have so little time that I have trouble making longer plans. None of us have 10,000 years that Bill Murray had in Groundhog Day.

smhost 10y ago
I think you should consider prioritizing medium-to-long term plans that will maximize the number of enjoyable little things you will have at the end of your life. And about the particular example of learning to sing, about 2 years of deliberate practice with a good teacher will get you where you want to be, so, not that big of a commitment in the grand scheme of things, I'd say.
JKCalhoun 10y ago
52 here, I put off things I know I can do in my old age and focus on the things requiring my physical health. So I am planning a PCT section hike with my daughter this summer but collecting plastic models to assemble when I'm 80. :-)

chuamo 10y ago

51? Most men die at 25... we just don't bury them until they are 70. -- Benjamin Franklin

phs318u 10y ago
:-)

jaredcwhite 10y ago

Thank you for this. I'm in my mid-30s and terrified that when I get older I'll turn into the beaten & defeated type that I myself have observed in some older people. I guess maybe my fear of losing my mojo is a hopeful indicator that I'll avoid such a fate. :)

kome 10y ago

I am beaten at 30, sigh.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

I've always thought of it this way. There are the people who want to "Be" something (writer, entrepreneur, etc) and those who want to "Have Been" something. The ones who want to have been always seem to be the ones who turn out to be not what they wanted because they've spent all their time thinking about how great it'll have been to be something than actually doing what they should have done to have been something. Whew. Still with me?

hikarudo 10y ago
Totally. I think of this as "people who want to do something", and "people who want to be someone."

BigChiefSmokem 10y ago

So true, I started to become the latter when I turned 30 (now 33). People say I'm still relatively young and need to relax but I vehemently disagree with them. Life feels like it could end any second now. Time is of the essence.

Waterluvian 10y ago

My dad's been working on his startup thats gone nowhere for a decade now. Reading your comment just instantly and drastically shifted how I perceive the value of him doing that.

cowardlydragon 10y ago

Yes they are hard at work: - destroy the housing market... check - ruin higher education... check - destroy democracy ... check - bankrupt social security and medicare... in progress, but basically a foregone conclusion - destroy all jobs for the current generation ... check

justavoice 10y ago
wow, you see nothing good in the prior generation? Must be a dark place you live in
phs318u 10y ago
I think you're being a little unfair. The world is a large system of systems. I'm going to use the analogy of a set of spinning tops of varying sizes and speeds. For the longest while it has seemed that most of these spinning tops have been quite stable, whizzing around perfectly balanced - and they have. So much so, that people have forgotten that there is any other state. Recently however there have been changes - small initially - that have perturbed some of these tops so that they are now wobbling and bumping into other tops, cascading perturbations. Perturbations are scary and - no surprise - hard to predict where they'll go. No one really understands (though they may try and guess) what's going to happen next. The current state of the tops seems to bear no relation to how we started. How did we get here? What can we do? Meanwhile, well meaning but largely ignorant "spinners of tops" are busily trying to restore the earlier balanced state by various means, not realising that they are only adding to the chaos. I guess what I'm trying to say is, very complex systems can have emergent complex (even chaotic) behaviours not originally anticipated. Outputs no longer bear a recognisable relation to inputs. Or even simpler, never ascribe to malice[1] what is often the result of ignorance/incompetence. [1] Though clearly, there are some malicious actors who are now exploiting the chaos and introducing perturbations to their own short advantage.