Whether we like it or not, we are all aging. Aging can be tough for many different reasons. In this article, you’ll find 18 hard truths about aging that we’re all denying.
Categorization
Society has a category for every age, such as Gen Z, Millennials, and Boomers. Once you get past a certain age, you get lumped into an old people’s category by society and the media. Being put in this category makes you feel older than you are.
Age Expectations
Society will only deem you successful if you have done landmark things by a certain time in your life. If you haven’t bought a house, started a family, or begun retiring by a certain age, you’re not good enough. These pressures don’t go away when we get older.
Near Vision
“Presbyopia is the gradual loss of your eyes’ ability to focus on nearby objects. It’s a natural, often annoying part of aging. Presbyopia usually becomes noticeable in your early to mid-40s and continues to worsen until around age 65,” says the Mayo Clinic. We can try to fight it, but once we hit 40, we will soon need reading glasses.
Media Attention
Most of the advertising we see is aimed at 18 to 34-year-olds. Once you pass this age bracket, you won’t be the center of the media’s attention anymore. This can make you feel rejected by society and as if you are not worth anything anymore.
Premature Aging
There are many things that can cause premature aging. These are smoking, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, sleep deprivation, and a poor diet, among other things. Noticing your first signs of aging is something rather daunting and frustrating. But looking after your body will help.
Pressure
The older we get, the more responsibility we have. We are expected to know a lot of things and be able to give good advice to others. Sometimes, the pressure to meet other people’s expectations is a lot to handle and can make us feel stressed.
Workplace Discrimination
Many people are discriminated against in the workplace because of their age. They are afraid to lose their jobs because they are not sure how easy it will be to get hired again. Younger people are always being hired to take over management roles and that can make an older person feel intimidated.
Tiredness
We hate to admit it but getting older makes us feel a lot more tired than we used to be. We simply don’t have the energy that we did in the past. It is frustrating to think about all the things we used to get done in a day and what we can do now.
Widowhood
The statistics from Gitnux show that “there are approximately 11.3 million widowed individuals in the United States. A study found that nearly 14% of individuals over the age of 65 are widowed.” Yes, widowhood is a reality that many older people are having to battle with.
Personal Goals
When things in life don’t go exactly the way we’d planned them, this can make us feel like we have failed somehow. And as we get older, we might worry that we don’t have a lot of time left to make our dreams a reality. This can make us feel unfulfilled.
Retirement Budget
The retirement budget we would like to have when we get older and the one we actually have are two different things. Having to retire on less money than we hoped is a reality that many Americans are facing. Life is getting more expensive and our savings may not match that.
Memory
“As people grow older, changes occur in all parts of the body, including the brain. As a result, some people notice that they don’t remember information as well as they once did and aren’t able to recall it as quickly,” says the National Institute on Aging.
Isolation
When we retire, we lose contact with a group of people that we used to talk to most days of the week. We spend more time at home than we used to, and this can make us feel lonely and isolated. We might miss our routine of getting out of the house and going to work each day.
Caring For Your Partner
A very difficult situation to deal with is if your partner becomes ill. Giving someone round-the-clock care is very tiring. What can be even harder is if your partner needs more specialized care and has to go into a care home and you are separated for the first time.
Cataracts
According to the National Eye Institute, “When you’re young, the lens in your eye is clear. Around age 40, the proteins in the lens of your eye start to break down and clump together.” Cataracts can make it difficult for us to see, especially when it comes to driving at night.
Aging Parents
One thing that is particularly hard to witness as we get older is seeing our parents become more frail and lose their mobility. Someone who always used to help you now needs your help and that can be rather hard for us to accept.
Health Scares
As we get older, we’re more likely to suffer from health problems. We might even receive bad news from a doctor and suffer a health scare. It’s really important that we visit the doctor regularly for health checks to keep on top of our health.
Keeping Up
The world around us is moving at such a fast pace that it can be difficult for us to keep up with it. The way things work always seems to be changing. Trying to stay on top of all the latest changes can seem exhausting.
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