Do you dread getting old?

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I think about this a lot. I'm only 23 almost 24, and time just seems to go by so fast as I get older. I am afraid of getting older because I don't want to lose my youthful appearance. I am afraid of losing my hair or having it turn grey and I am afraid of wrinkles. You may say that I am too young to be worrying about this, but I never want it to happen to me even if it is years from now. I see old people who can barely walk and getting in or out of their car is a struggle for them. I also fear of not being able to one day do the things that I normally do. I also don't like change and getting old means going through more change and more change means that you are getting older. I also don't feel like an adult. I feel more like a child at my age and I feel like I will never fully mature. I don't know how to grow up and I don't want to grow old.

LOL....I'm already old!

And I'm doing okay. I still have my mind, and I'm physically okay.

I'm 56.

You're too young to think about "getting old." You have a long life ahead of you.

I'd much rather get old and be like my grandpa at 70, than die young of cancer or whatever.

I'm one year younger than you and I've felt the same way as you do ever since I can remember... Growing and growing old both are dreadful processes that you have no control over. Everything changes every day little by little but it accumulates drastically. It just happens and it's very scary.

Being old is great. You get a free travel pass (in the UK you do), you get priority to seats on the bus, your working days are over, and you're under less pressure to conform.

But it has it's downsides too, unfortunately.

I'm even older than kraftiekortie. Getting old is awful, but it beats the alternative (dying young).

Actually, older adults have the highest self-reported level of contentment of any age group. Their working days are over, they know what matters in life and what doesn't, and chances are they have learned who they are and come to accept that.

A better choice than worrying about being a decrepit, ailing oldster, is being as healthy as you are able to now so your later days are relatively easy and healthy. Don't smoke, drink in moderation, maintain a healthy weight, and exercise enough.

That is quite understandable. Normal, even. Growing old, ageing, is pretty much a slow decline to a finite end of life here on Earth and that is a fearsome reality, no doubt about it. Probably safe to call that one of the greatest challenges of life; how does one cope with it? And on top of that the experience of aging is unique to the individual person: it truly is something where you experience it alone. Sure, relatives and friends can make their own journey of aging next to you, but you will each have your own unique experience. No one else thinks your thoughts, feels your feelings, senses your body; living through the process of ageing is a truly solo experience.

Also sometimes frightening are the ideas of what happens to each of us at the end of this life here. Is the end the absolute end where once our mind stops we cease to have awareness and existence; or, is there some intangible something in us which continues to exist beyond space and time in an eternal dimension?
Either one of those concepts can be overwhelming. And sometimes I do feel overwhelmed by them.

My health began to decline in my middle 30s. There were a couple things which had been happening since birth but a couple slowly degenerative neurological, endocrine, and musculoskeletal process began during that decade. From those I well understand having a fear of growing old and incapacitated. I'd rather skip the incapacitated part of the equation. Oh, well, it might be wise for me to start now with making peace with that possibility.
I sure don't like the idea but I would do well to sort out how to cope with it.
Already at 53 I have lost abilities to do things. Because of the disease process involved there is little probability of those abilities returning. I'll just have to do my best to not cause additional damage as I figure out how to cope with the losses.

It helps to seek out and then do what things are known to help the human body age with less damage - eat well in particular. And keep up with health care. There are both conventional and unconventional approaches a person can take. Best thing I can say on that is to research information and learn to discern what is reliable and what is less so.

And with that I've run out of thoughts for the moment.

You will age as long as you live and because of that, there is no more use getting upset about it than there is getting upset that the sun rises every day.

There are, however, things you can do to help maintain your body.
1. If you are light skinned, wear a broad spectrum sunscreen when out in the sun, to help prevent sun damage and wrinkles. I see a number of men with sun damaged skin, and it's very unattractive. I recommend Coppertone Sport for a number of reasons. Also be sure to reapply every two hours if you are in the sun for that long. This is important not only for continuing protection from the sun, but also from the free radicals produced when the sun breaks down the sunscreen. If you happen to be able to get a hold of European sunscreens, some of them are more photostable than American sunscreens.

2. Limit your sugar intake. Sugar is necessary for the body, but refined sucrose didn't exist for much of human evolution. Your skin and other parts of your body contain elastin and collagen chains which help your skin and connective tissues retain their elasticity, and these chains sometimes break. They can repair themselves, but sometimes they are subject to glycolation, a phenomena when glycogen, produced by sugar, bonds to the broken chain and causes the collagen and elastin to bind together, rather than back to themselves. This reduces the skin's elasticity and contributes to wrinkles and sagging. This also happens to other tissues in your body.

3. Get enough exercise...but not too much. People who don't exercise, and marathon runners and weight lifters, have higher mortality rates than people who get a moderate amount of regular exercise.

4. Keep active and get enough social interaction. People who shut themselves in and who suffer from loneliness have higher mortality rates than people who engage in social activities.

5. Relax. Stress contributes to health problems and increases mortality rates.

6. Drink in moderation. People who drink in moderation, particularly red wine (for example, a glass with dinner) out live people who don't drink at all, and people who drink too much.

7. Don't drink too much.

8. Keep your diet low in red meats and cholesterol, high in vegetables and whole grains.

9. Don't over eat.

10. Keep your weight healthy.

11. Enjoy life.

Part of the art of aging is learning how to live rooted in the present while delegating a percentage of your mind and being to making reality checks on what you are doing in the present and assessing whether a thing will have a positive or a negative impact on you in your coming years.

Personally I didn't particularly like being young. I didn't get anything from it. I didn't feel young due to health problems, I attracted the wrong kind of attention (real creeps my father's age who thought they could take advantage of me and tried to get me to get into their car) was frequently disrespected, or spoken to in a condescending manner, and was fairly broke on top of it.

If I had to pick an age to look like forever, it would not be a particularly young one.

the older you get, the less worried you are about getting old. i am 45 (which is not outrageously old), and think "well whatever"
i think the older a person gets, the more they become tired of life.
people at 90 often look forward to going to sleep that night, and eventually they feel that sleep is preferable to being awake.
i sometimes fear the concept of dying because it means i will be unconscious forever and it is unfathomable to think about that.

young people fear losing their looks and being sexy and physically attractive, and old people do not want to look attractive much any more.
people everywhere just know you are old and treat you normally because they know everyone goes through it. it's not like anyone points at you and goes "yuck!! how ugly".

the thing that i can not fathom is being dead forever...it never will end and yet you'll not experience any of it.
it's like you subconsciously think "yeah but at some stage i'll get restless about being dormant" but you never do.

everyone dies. everyone.

now if you think about it, you were dead forever before you were born.
so how can that be since i am alive now?
does it mean "forever" has an end?
mathematically, on the simplest level, there are "lines" and "rays"
a "line" is infinitely long and has no beginning or end.
a "ray" is infinitely long but starts somewhere and goes forever or else it never starts anywhere but finishes somewhere. how can that be?

it's all very confusing really.

also, if you get to be 90 or more, all the people you knew in life who knew you as a vibrant and capable person are gone. they have already "boldly gone" where no man can go.

i don't know how to answer your question.

I have thought about aging as long as I could remember, not always in the same light of course. The idea of that kind of change has always perplexed me. On one hand, getting older is a beautiful process, and we should all be happy to be alive... On the other, I don't want to wither away. I am self-aware enough to know I shouldn't even be thinking about withering away at this age, but I do not have the will to prevent myself from dwelling on such thoughts.

I guess my overall answer to this would have to be non-partisan. I appreciate the process of getting older, and what it means, but I still don't want to do it! But I think fearing the aging (or I guess dying) process. It's as natural as the fear of death. *Shrug*

I'm 23 and I feel f*****g old. I know I'm really not, but I feel like I am.

My mother just passed at 70; I'm already worried about my own mortality, and I'm in my mid-30s. I hope I do live a long life, though.

I don't dread getting old, because there will be less years that I will have to endure.

I do dread the chronic physical illness part that often comes with aging; also fear parents passing and becoming even more alone that I already am.

Do understand that. In my case they began before I even got to high school and more have slowly accumulated since. A lot seem to have a genetic factor in the mix.

My were born in 1940 - they're getting that age where things happen.