11 ms·

When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was

When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was thinking about you in the first place.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago
I really do not find that a man starts to care less about what others think of him as he ages at all. Rather, I find it is that adults rule the conformance games that adolescents and teenagers play are “silly” all the while partaking in their own, which are of course not silly, but rather how one should conform and teenagers are wrong for not conforming to those ideals. Consider that the parent who berates his child for smoking marihuana to be part of his clique will the next day consume alcohol at his office party, as to not be left out.
- dasyatidprime 6y ago
  Which connects up, in the sense that you stereotypically care less in a way that you consciously notice because you gradually internalize the culture strongly enough for it to just feel like “the way things are”, and then in old age you impute upon yourself (and/or society imputes upon you) a position of sufficient immunity that you can keep saying “the kids are wrong” even as they're about to displace you.
- watwut 6y ago
  > Consider that the parent who berates his child for smoking marihuana to be part of his clique will the next day consume alcohol at his office party, as to not be left out. I don't think this is good example. I dont want my kids to drink alcohol yet. When I do drink alcohol, it is really not so that "I am not left out". Pretty much all office parties I have been at had bunch of people who were not drinking in them. And marihuana has added effect of being illegal in many places. And if your kid is smoking it so that the kid fits, it absolutely makes sense to treat it as issue. Regardless of whether you sometimes drink alcohol at office party.
watwut 6y ago
> When you're forty, you don't care what people think. I assure you that 40 years old do care about what people think. Partly, because people are simply wired that way, that is why we are social animals instead of solitary ones. But the other is that it matters. What people think about you influences how they treat you, what they tell you and what chances they give you. It makes difference between being listened to and being ignored.
bonoboTP 6y ago
It's a great "mind-bown" insight story, but just not true. People do judge each other and have opinions and put them in little mental boxes all the time. Impressions matter and can make or break your life. For example, anyone who used to be fat and then loses weight can attest that it matters what others think of you and they do think things. It's comfortable and uplifting and "wise" to say that nobody cares but they do. People assess their relative status and success all the time by comparing with others. Now this doesn't mean you have to go crazy trying to satisfy everyone because you can't. People want contradictory things from you. You need to have your own moral or other principles to keep on track of a certain path in the face of rejection. But if everyone thinks you're an asshole, the answer isn't to just ignore everyone. I think a better lesson is that it's better to have some haters and some who really like you than to have everyone be lukewarm about you and ignore you. The haters are no big issue unless they are really determined enemies, and the upside of the truly appreciative people is bigger. You can only get true deep connections if you accept the risk that some people won't like you. As long as you try to please everyone you won't really please anyone. See the story of the miller and his son.
- dunmalg 6y ago
  >It's a great "mind-blown" insight story, but just not true. People do judge each other and have opinions and put them in little mental boxes all the time Yes, we all understand that people stereotype. I think you're getting bogged down in the details and missing the overall point, which is far more generalized. The above story is meant to be short and clever, and to do so it glosses over a few things that you're meant to pick up contextually. The point it's trying to make is this: 20 year olds tend to think people are watching, judging, and remembering their every move and are concerned about it 40 year olds still tend to think they're being watched and judged, but don't care 60 year olds realize that everyone is too busy thinking about their own situation to really pay much attention to others beyond superficial stereotyping, and that unless you affect someone deeply with your presentation, they won't likely cling to previous judgements of you.
  - glaugh 6y ago
    And this observation does have empirical backing and is known as the “Spotlight Effect”. The more careful definition of it (which I agree is not the point of the pithy story) is “People tend to overestimate the degree to which others notice them and their failings.” (Caveat that I haven’t looked into how deeply this has survived the psych and social psych replication crisis)
_the_inflator 6y ago
I experienced this first hand on our high school reunion party. Zero people remembered my most awkward or embarrassing moments - only I did. The only thing they cared about was themselves. I was totally stunned. They had a completely different picture of me. Then it damned on me: I couldn't really remember any other awkward nor embarrassing moments by others. All I cared about was I. Relief. :D
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  It doesn't matter whether they remember you decades later. What matters is whether they shun you or include you in the moment. Perhaps they don't really even notice you enough to care if you're awkward or they just know you're so awkward and "other" that there's no point in keeping track of yet another awkward moment of yours. It doesn't mean their perceptions don't influence your life.
im3w1l 6y ago
When you are twenty you need to prove yourself to women and employers. When you are sixty, less of your life remains, so the stakes are lower. If you piss someone off to the point that they do you in - who cares?
VoodooJuJu 6y ago
I mostly understand this, but it doesn't go deep enough. Sure, I don't worry about what people consciously think of me, like "Does he think I'm incompetent because of that mistake I made? Does she like the way I'm dressed?". I'm more concerned with what they're not thinking, or rather the biases they may be unconsciously harboring about myself or others. Look at this [1], from a study on the relation of criminal sentences and attractiveness: >Physical Attractiveness had a significant influence on judges sentencing. The more unattractive the criminal, the higher the sentence. Or conversely, the more attractive the criminal, the lower the sentence. The results of three studies show a minimum increase of 119.25% and a maximum increase of 304.88%. That's pretty disturbing to me. It what other ways am I being treated and being shaped by the unconscious biases of others? Say Jim gets promoted into management and made leader of a project instead of me, because he's a "better fit" for the role. For what reasons is he a "better fit"? Imagine if the unconscious mind could speak. It might say something like this: "Jim was made tribe leader because of his robust musculature. His square jaw arouses me to no end - such an indicator of higher testosterone, strength, and disease resistance will serve our offspring well. Broad-shouldered Jim can probably throw a spear hard enough to pierce fifty men. A warrior of his magnitude will surely lead us to victory against our ancestral foe, the Google tribe." Okay, that's fine, but what does that have to do with shipping a profitable software product? "Square. Jaw." Completely absurd. We can never completely relieve ourselves of these kinds of biases, and of politics. But I believe we can mitigate it to a meaningful degree. We can have meaningful standards and metrics for evaluating people for certain roles. Horowitz talks about this kind of politics-mitigation in at least one chapter in his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. [1] The Law Project. (2021, January 16). The Law Project. Retrieved from https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bias-in-the-legal-system https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bia.... (The relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24044409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24044409)
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  But what if it's a self fulfilling bias in the sense that he actually will be a better leader precisely because that little unconscious man in people's minds will say those kinds of things to them and they will actually be more likely to follow his lead than if you put a weakling in his place who is technically better versed in software. As in, society is biased to pick the square-jaw guy for leadership, because society knows that society follows square-jaw guys in leader roles better.
psyc 6y ago
At 40, it isn’t that I don’t care. It’s that I no longer worry or even think about it at all. I’m confident enough that people think well of me. It isn’t likely that nobody thinks about me at all, given that I think about everyone else quite a bit. Whoever coined this mildly amusing canard sounds a bit antisocial.
sirsinsalot 6y ago
I think "caring" and "worrying" is too general. What's important is _how_ other people's feelings about us affect our actions and _why_. That's what changes over time.

When you're twenty, you worry about what people think. When you're forty, you don't care what people think. And when you're sixty, you realize that nobody was thinking about you in the first place.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

I really do not find that a man starts to care less about what others think of him as he ages at all. Rather, I find it is that adults rule the conformance games that adolescents and teenagers play are “silly” all the while partaking in their own, which are of course not silly, but rather how one should conform and teenagers are wrong for not conforming to those ideals. Consider that the parent who berates his child for smoking marihuana to be part of his clique will the next day consume alcohol at his office party, as to not be left out.

dasyatidprime 6y ago
Which connects up, in the sense that you stereotypically care less in a way that you consciously notice because you gradually internalize the culture strongly enough for it to just feel like “the way things are”, and then in old age you impute upon yourself (and/or society imputes upon you) a position of sufficient immunity that you can keep saying “the kids are wrong” even as they're about to displace you.
watwut 6y ago
> Consider that the parent who berates his child for smoking marihuana to be part of his clique will the next day consume alcohol at his office party, as to not be left out. I don't think this is good example. I dont want my kids to drink alcohol yet. When I do drink alcohol, it is really not so that "I am not left out". Pretty much all office parties I have been at had bunch of people who were not drinking in them. And marihuana has added effect of being illegal in many places. And if your kid is smoking it so that the kid fits, it absolutely makes sense to treat it as issue. Regardless of whether you sometimes drink alcohol at office party.

watwut 6y ago

> When you're forty, you don't care what people think. I assure you that 40 years old do care about what people think. Partly, because people are simply wired that way, that is why we are social animals instead of solitary ones. But the other is that it matters. What people think about you influences how they treat you, what they tell you and what chances they give you. It makes difference between being listened to and being ignored.

bonoboTP 6y ago

It's a great "mind-bown" insight story, but just not true. People do judge each other and have opinions and put them in little mental boxes all the time. Impressions matter and can make or break your life. For example, anyone who used to be fat and then loses weight can attest that it matters what others think of you and they do think things. It's comfortable and uplifting and "wise" to say that nobody cares but they do. People assess their relative status and success all the time by comparing with others. Now this doesn't mean you have to go crazy trying to satisfy everyone because you can't. People want contradictory things from you. You need to have your own moral or other principles to keep on track of a certain path in the face of rejection. But if everyone thinks you're an asshole, the answer isn't to just ignore everyone. I think a better lesson is that it's better to have some haters and some who really like you than to have everyone be lukewarm about you and ignore you. The haters are no big issue unless they are really determined enemies, and the upside of the truly appreciative people is bigger. You can only get true deep connections if you accept the risk that some people won't like you. As long as you try to please everyone you won't really please anyone. See the story of the miller and his son.

dunmalg 6y ago
>It's a great "mind-blown" insight story, but just not true. People do judge each other and have opinions and put them in little mental boxes all the time Yes, we all understand that people stereotype. I think you're getting bogged down in the details and missing the overall point, which is far more generalized. The above story is meant to be short and clever, and to do so it glosses over a few things that you're meant to pick up contextually. The point it's trying to make is this: 20 year olds tend to think people are watching, judging, and remembering their every move and are concerned about it 40 year olds still tend to think they're being watched and judged, but don't care 60 year olds realize that everyone is too busy thinking about their own situation to really pay much attention to others beyond superficial stereotyping, and that unless you affect someone deeply with your presentation, they won't likely cling to previous judgements of you.
- glaugh 6y ago
  And this observation does have empirical backing and is known as the “Spotlight Effect”. The more careful definition of it (which I agree is not the point of the pithy story) is “People tend to overestimate the degree to which others notice them and their failings.” (Caveat that I haven’t looked into how deeply this has survived the psych and social psych replication crisis)

_the_inflator 6y ago

I experienced this first hand on our high school reunion party. Zero people remembered my most awkward or embarrassing moments - only I did. The only thing they cared about was themselves. I was totally stunned. They had a completely different picture of me. Then it damned on me: I couldn't really remember any other awkward nor embarrassing moments by others. All I cared about was I. Relief. :D

bonoboTP 6y ago
It doesn't matter whether they remember you decades later. What matters is whether they shun you or include you in the moment. Perhaps they don't really even notice you enough to care if you're awkward or they just know you're so awkward and "other" that there's no point in keeping track of yet another awkward moment of yours. It doesn't mean their perceptions don't influence your life.

im3w1l 6y ago

When you are twenty you need to prove yourself to women and employers. When you are sixty, less of your life remains, so the stakes are lower. If you piss someone off to the point that they do you in - who cares?

VoodooJuJu 6y ago

I mostly understand this, but it doesn't go deep enough. Sure, I don't worry about what people consciously think of me, like "Does he think I'm incompetent because of that mistake I made? Does she like the way I'm dressed?". I'm more concerned with what they're not thinking, or rather the biases they may be unconsciously harboring about myself or others. Look at this [1], from a study on the relation of criminal sentences and attractiveness: >Physical Attractiveness had a significant influence on judges sentencing. The more unattractive the criminal, the higher the sentence. Or conversely, the more attractive the criminal, the lower the sentence. The results of three studies show a minimum increase of 119.25% and a maximum increase of 304.88%. That's pretty disturbing to me. It what other ways am I being treated and being shaped by the unconscious biases of others? Say Jim gets promoted into management and made leader of a project instead of me, because he's a "better fit" for the role. For what reasons is he a "better fit"? Imagine if the unconscious mind could speak. It might say something like this: "Jim was made tribe leader because of his robust musculature. His square jaw arouses me to no end - such an indicator of higher testosterone, strength, and disease resistance will serve our offspring well. Broad-shouldered Jim can probably throw a spear hard enough to pierce fifty men. A warrior of his magnitude will surely lead us to victory against our ancestral foe, the Google tribe." Okay, that's fine, but what does that have to do with shipping a profitable software product? "Square. Jaw." Completely absurd. We can never completely relieve ourselves of these kinds of biases, and of politics. But I believe we can mitigate it to a meaningful degree. We can have meaningful standards and metrics for evaluating people for certain roles. Horowitz talks about this kind of politics-mitigation in at least one chapter in his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. [1] The Law Project. (2021, January 16). The Law Project. Retrieved from https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bias-in-the-legal-system https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bia.... (The relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24044409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24044409)

bonoboTP 6y ago
But what if it's a self fulfilling bias in the sense that he actually will be a better leader precisely because that little unconscious man in people's minds will say those kinds of things to them and they will actually be more likely to follow his lead than if you put a weakling in his place who is technically better versed in software. As in, society is biased to pick the square-jaw guy for leadership, because society knows that society follows square-jaw guys in leader roles better.

psyc 6y ago

At 40, it isn’t that I don’t care. It’s that I no longer worry or even think about it at all. I’m confident enough that people think well of me. It isn’t likely that nobody thinks about me at all, given that I think about everyone else quite a bit. Whoever coined this mildly amusing canard sounds a bit antisocial.

sirsinsalot 6y ago

I think "caring" and "worrying" is too general. What's important is _how_ other people's feelings about us affect our actions and _why_. That's what changes over time.