The absolute absence of shits I now give.
Your toilet vehemently disagrees with you.
You stop giving a shit about famous people.
only 40 years until retirement (/s)
Not dying at 39. This is weird lol. Aging isn’t optional.
as a woman: less street harassment.
Being immune to the vagaries of pop culture and being pleasantly baffled when celebs make the news and you have no fucking idea who they are.
It’s also kind of wild because a lot of the really, really famous young people look entirely the opposite of the super-good-looking A-listers of the past. Guess its great that the younger generation seem less superficial than we were, but my programming struggles to process it when I see some pasty, odd looking dweeb and find out they’re outstreamng the Beatles or whatever.
Turning 40 freaked me out a bit, but it hasn’t been that bad, outside of the whole “collapsing society” thing that’s been going on the last several years. I have a wonderful wife and kid, chickens, a dog, a cat with a heart full of disdain, and two dorky cars. I have good neighbors, a decent job, I honestly feel kinda guilty for how well I’ve been doing since I turned 40.
Most of the advantages don’t come from being over 40, but rather, from the experience of having lived over 40 years. What you have is knowledge and perspective. You can make better choices, fall into fewer traps. It’s that “wisdom” thing you may have heard of.
Also, as most people over 40 have been working for some time now, many of us (though definitely not all) have reached a different phase of their life financially. In my 20s, when things went wrong it was generally like “well, this is my life now”, but in my 40s when something goes wrong it’s more often like “ok, how much will it cost for this problem to go away?”. And don’t forget, with all of that wisdom we have, sometimes we can just solve the problem, but when that won’t work, throwing money at problems is generally effective.
Finally, I think someone already said it, but it’s worth repeating. You stop giving a shit about a lot of things, and it’s liberating. It feels like honesty and confidence and contentment.
This is the right answer.
It’s almost over.
Experiencing all the various pain you only ever read about.
Oh, wait…
Honestly, the only disadvantage is that you can start to feel your body breaking down.
Everything else just gets better. You’re wiser, smarter, more confident, less bothered, and you have fewer fucks to give.
And honestly, I look hotter now than I did in my twenties or thirties.
If only the world didn’t keep on getting worse every year.
if you do put in the work you can feel better than when you were younger.
you see all this carastrophic obesity going on/ insomnia/stress and its no wonder people are feeling shit all the time. you can feel your body breaking down before 40.
not like youre going to reverse aging but you can at least give yourself and your loved ones a break from dealing with something like an early stroke or unable to physically care for yourself for a significant part of your life.
Yeah, I’m trying to get better at that. More exercise, more stretching, more vegetables in my diet. It’s a process, but I’m starting to feel the difference.
Awesome! same. agreed it is a process. I kind of wish this kind of thing was more normalized so that it would feel less like a massive adjustment of shaking off the sugar/salt/fat/sitting/drama addictions imposed by so much of the media and capitalism.
Seconded. In the last 12 months, my eyesight has taken a turn and I am not sleeping as well. Less focus, forgetting more things, having to ask, “What?” way more often.
The focus might be brain rot… Need to get off Lemmy.
Mid 40 here.
I’m hard pressed for advantages. I care less for opinions of others, but also feel immense frustration that those exact opinions influence my life too often.
I appreciate many things more because I have the experience to know how much effort they were, but also lost my fascination amd feeling of wonder.
I think it is not an issue with being older as such. It is the time we live in.
Struggles increasing while the body and mind are decreasing.
Depends on the person, but in my case:
- Financial stability
- Fewer worries
- I’ve learned to relax and not take things too seriously. Especially when it comes to myself.
- I finally know what I’m gonna do “when I grow up”
- Time and resources to spend on my hobbies
Hard emphasis on “Depends on the person.” I have a friend in their early 40s who currently can’t meet anything on this list due to financial hardships and unstable living conditions.
I also have two elderly friends who are unhoused due to all the shelters being booked as a result of the heat.
Fuck Amerikkka by the way.
I can +1 this. I’m that guy. Especially #1,2 &4…
If my landlord dies (she’s in her 70s and not doing well) I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do. I have an absurdly low rent for the area I’m in (1,400/month +utilities for a shit garage “apartment” is considered cheap here…) and if I have to move it will be out of the state and I have to leave my job… Being an uneducated piece of shit my job prospects, especially in this economy, are pretty much nil.
My sister in-law is from that country you simp for, and an entire section of her family has been living on the street for decades. So, fuck the world, pal.
Financial stability… Seems I’m doing something wrong
Fewer worries? I didn’t gave a shit in my 20th, since my burnout I’m a complete wreck
I think, everyone has something different at that age
I do start to notice, what’s actually important to me, but being a nerve wreck, I don’t have the base to really go for the things, I care about
I finally know what I’m gonna do “when I grow up”
how? I know after 40 I just resigned myself I will not be something else when I would grew up (mechanic, doctor, lawyer, whatever) and that I’ll be a software developer for the rest of my life :-/
It’s mostly acceptance that you are already grown up, and a career change involves financially weighing the benefits of the new career vs the lost income to train for it. Add to it the fact that the working runway gets shorter and shorter which reduces the financial payoff, and you’re not changing careers after your 40s unless it’s for love/enjoyment.
I think we were sold a lot of Hollywood bullshit about living for your job and working all evening or dream jobs that involved taking our laptops to Starbucks to plan parties for the rich and famous. But at the end of the day, a job is a job - nobody would pay you to do it if it was that fun. And so my choice is to make as much as I can to allow me to enjoy my leisure time, which means staying in my current career where I have already climbed the ladder.
There is some truth to this… I’ve moved on from the ideas that I might be highly influential or consequential. Now I just focus on trying to be a good person, do good deeds that keep me happy, tell nazis to DIAF, etc. No fame to be had for me. Other than a few immediate family members, I’ll be forgotten to time when I die.
Luck, basically. I landed a career that I actually enjoy, it pays decently, and I’m given a lot of freedom and flexibility. I tried having a “normal job”, but in my mid 30s I concluded that normal jobs are for normal people, so I reached out to some former coworkers and got back into offshore seismic survey. I have since landed a supporting role where most of it is done from home.
I still enjoy being a software developer, I also WFH since COVID which is incredible
Having habits that you have honed to benefit you and having enough experience to develop forethought.
Giving less fucks in general
