How to Age Gracefully | CBC Radio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sycgL3Qg_Ak
[Spoiler]
"Dear 91-year old, don't listen to other people's advice.
Nobody knows what the hell they're doing.
Signed, a 93-year old."
[Edit]
This was originally passed down to me through RSS from:
I hadn't changed my personality significantly, and I was baffled for a long time. Then I realized that I had become a 40 something man with a touch of grey and some gravel in his voice.
Somewhere along the way people had just automatically started thinking of me as the Boss archetype instead of the Bro archetype.
It was startling to me that my dumbass opinion was suddenly being held in higher regard due to the simple expedient of becoming old.
Banger
I didn't think it would be, I hardly looked in the mirror at the best of times during my 20s and 30s, but I've been rapidly balding over the past 2/3 years and I can see by this time next year...I'll be bald. I'm at the point I've been considering going to turkey, but I think the most surprising thing to me is just now much it bothers me, consumes considerably too much thought, it's brutal!!
Then one day I decided enough was enough and I just shaved my head. 20 years later I wouldn't go back to a full head of hair.
It's easier than having a hairstyle, quicker than having a hairstyle, cheaper than having a hairstyle, and best of all, any time I've gotten hot and sweaty, I can just chuck some water over my head in a sink and enjoy whole-scalp-cooling!
Definitely a rough thing to struggle with.
At 40 you're barely at the halfway point of your career since we're gonna have to work till our 70's anyway, so buckle up for another 30+ years.
You should not need to do anything special to be a 40 or 50 year old (or whatever) and fit in with a group.
This is one of the last 'isms' that society has yet to tackle. But society will eventually become less ageist as it ages more and more.
I think he's just trying to be proactive with an insurance policy to cushion the blow since societal ageism is completely out of your control.
You might not believe in ageism being real, but if the job market does, then you're shit out of luck, so might as well start prepping for it.
>But society will eventually become less ageist as it ages more and more.
I doubt it. Employers will just demand more immigration that's more youthful and more exploitable or just offshore more.
Where I live in EU, there really isn't a huge market for white collar workers over 50 despite society already skewing quiet old. One compounding issue is that in my country once you hit 50 you get firing protections so nobody wants to hire someone they won't be able to fire, especially if the industry is full of ambitious young blood like in SW.
Society is hundreds to thousands of times older than you or I. The US is a gerontocracy. I don't think the age of society has any relation to how agiest it is. The current and next culture regarding age will die with it's population and the next young generation will come with their own culture surrounding age.
The thing about 40 is, you're not old, but you see your youth dying. If your identity is in being young, sexy, fit, athletic, then that may be brutal. Depends on what your identity is in, and how you handle the loss of it.
Only way to prevent this is to be a director or unusually gifted as an engineer. Otherwise you are the old guy that wants too much money. I hate that the industry is like this but unless you are very high in your field your value to tech employers reaches zero unless your career has developed to a high level.
