The Unfiltered Truth: 14 Brutal Realities of Getting Older
We hear phrases like “the golden years” and “growing old gracefully,” but there’s no denying that growing older sucks in several ways. The experience is humbling, frightening, and not for the faint of heart.
For lack of a better word, the ticking of our clocks is brutal. Rather than bury our heads in the sands of time, though, we must stare at these brutal realities in their hideous faces. The sooner we acknowledge that there are real pitfalls to getting older, the more we can craft fulfilling lives within our abundant constraints.
1. Some Activities Are No Longer Available to You
The gulf between “want to” and “ability to” grows larger and larger with each passing year. You might want to go dirt biking or clubbing when you are 60 years old, but can you? It’s absolutely brutal when you realize that certain activities and ambitions are no longer feasible.
The silver lining is that some benefits are only available to older people—Social Security, Medicare, and senior discounts at the local AMC theater are among the examples.
2. Your Looks Don’t Get You as Far as They Used To
Unfair as it is, youth and beauty often go hand in hand. Unfortunately, the inverse also tends to be true.
Many people can see the beauty in wrinkles, sagging skin, and graying hair. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of beauty that allows you to skip the line, get your meals paid for, or earn promotions. Embrace being well-rounded because the good looks that got you by in your twenties and thirties don’t last forever.
3. Time Is Moving Faster
Time is a cruel mother. One of its most abusive features is its tendency to speed up as we age. One scientist has proposed that, as our neural networks grow larger with age, electrical signals take longer to traverse those networks, somehow leading to the perception that time is moving more quickly.
I’ve also heard that the routine of adulthood leads to fewer standout experiences, meaning that days, months, and years can fly by without meaningful memories to make that time feel memorable. Either way, time’s ability to slip away is one of the most haunted aspects of aging.
4. Things Hurt
Once you hit your late thirties, it becomes clear that soreness is just a part of life. It becomes more difficult to discern an injury from general aches and pains, and it’s no secret that frequent (if not constant) pain only worsens with age.
Making matters worse, medical authorities recommend remedies like stretching, an activity that becomes harder the older we get. Are they just rubbing the aging-related aches in our faces?
5. Your Ego Shrinks
When a child witnesses her father or mother asking for a stabilizing hand on rocky terrain, she sees firsthand the humbling nature of getting older. The world’s cockiest individuals have been cut down by father time, inevitably looking back on their arrogant ways with head-shaking wonderment.
It’s not just your body or earning power that shrinks when you hit a certain age—your feelings of invincibility do, too.
6. The Weight Sticks Around
Do you want to know how hard it is to lose weight as you lose testosterone through aging? It’s so hard that weight loss in older adults is considered a potential sign of impending death.
The beer gut that used to take twenty miles to remove now takes forty. The six-pack that used to emerge after a couple of months of cutting out alcohol is now a pipe dream. The term “dad bod” exists for a good reason, and it’s because metabolism slows and fat persists the older we get (at least until we reach elderly status).
7. You Don’t Recognize the Man (or Woman) in the Mirror
Even though most of us look in a mirror every day, it’s a common phenomenon for people to look in the mirror one day and wonder: Who the hell is that?
While feelings of unfamiliarity with the person in the mirror can signal certain disorders, it’s also a natural byproduct of the aging process. Few of us truly consider what we’ll look like as grown-ups, so when this happens, it can be jarring and immensely depressing for those unprepared to handle the inevitable physical changes.
8. Your Children Will Disappoint You
Every newborn ever to exit a womb is a future doctor, astronaut, or Nobel Prize winner. Relatively few adults become these things.
Most parents should embrace the mantra “you can never be disappointed if you have low expectations,” particularly regarding their kids. Whether it’s college dropouts, low-paying careers, wrongheaded approaches to raising the grandkids, or other shortcomings, kids have an unrivaled capacity to let their parents down—you’ll understand once you’re older.
9. You Must Accept Dreams Going Unfulfilled
The longer you live, the less potential you can claim. If you’re fifty, you no longer have the option of playing in the NFL. Our bodies and minds, as well as a society that ties one’s age to one’s eligibility for certain things, place limitations on us.
For these reasons, certain dreams become unfulfillable by the nature of your age alone. The key, some say, is to fulfill the dreams you still can to minimize that dreaded deathbed regret.
10. Getting Up Early Is No Longer a Choice
It’s well-documented that older adults tend to wake up earlier than most. Not just the sense that time is dwindling leads to early rising, but our biology drives the elderly’s 5 a.m. wake-up times, as our circadian rhythms tend to rouse us earlier in the day the older we get.
“Sleeping in” becomes a foreign concept for most once they hit a certain age. While waking up early is not the worst thing in the world, an occasional prolonged morning slumber would be nice.
11. You Can’t Lift What You Used To
Getting older makes you realize that The Rock has to be taking something to keep that physique as a 52-year-old, right?
Sarcopenia is the medical term for muscle loss, but most of us just call it getting old. Whether it’s a cinder block for your backyard garden or a barbell loaded with weight, lifting things you used to lift is downright dangerous for most aging adults. ˛
12. Not Everyone Becomes the Silver Fox
Most men want to envision themselves going gray in the manner of George Clooney or Richard Gere. Yet, for every Clooney or Gere, there are countless other men who age far less gracefully. The same variance affects aging women, too.
Perhaps you should assume that you will age poorly. If you end up becoming a silver fox, you can enjoy the pleasant surprise. Low expectations tend to produce positive outcomes.
13. You Get to Know Your Doctor Very Well
You might blame your 75-year-old father if they started referring to their physician as their best friend. Gauging solely by the amount of time he spends with another person, it would be difficult to refute the thought.
Those over 65 see their doctor more than twice as often as 18-to-44-year-olds, and that may be undershooting it. If it’s not knee pain, it’s heart palpitations or memory loss. The only advice we can give is to find a doctor with nice feng shui in the waiting room.
14. You Can’t Take Others’ Help for Granted (Unless You Pay Them)
They say, “you’re born alone, you die alone.” Going further, the reality for many is that they are on their own through much of the time between birth and death.
While many would like someone or some institution to save us—from insolvency, infirmity, and our countless other ills—the truth is that you’ll probably have to save yourself. It’s always wise to save up enough money so that, if you need to, you can hire the best caregivers money can buy. Don’t expect your kids or the state to do it for you.
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