Comment by irvingprime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by irvingprime | Hacker News Reader

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What's it like to be old?

My boss is younger than I am and is absolutely sure he knows more about my job than I do, even though I've been doing it since before he was born and he never did it at all.

People on TV keep trying to sell me stuff like Metamucil, some new kind of cane or similar silly gadget, or a scam investment, none of which I want.

My grandkids can't understand why I can't read things they're holding right in front of my face until I've spent twenty minutes finding, then cleaning, my glasses.

My wife has heard all of my jokes and all of my excuses. She now criticizes the former and laughs at the latter, instead of the other way around.

My friends sound like cranky old sticks-in-the-mud who wish they could turn back the clock to a time that wasn't nearly as wonderful as they claim to remember it was.

A trip to the supermarket now tires me out and instead of going out with (surviving) friends, I really look forward to taking a nap on the couch. Really.

The celebrities I recognize are senile and/or decrepit. The ones who are currently popular are appalling.

I don't have enough money to retire but dream of it every day (See the above comment about my boss).

Life is fantastic, except when it's not. Whichever it is now, pretty soon, it will be the other one.

My advice: Pay attention.

Out of all of them, this one rings the truest to me. Thank you! Other observations I've had as I get old:

The older I get the less it matters to me what other people think of me, which is liberating. When I was younger, people's impression of me was my problem. Now that I'm older, people's impression of me is their problem.

I always thought getting out-of-touch would be embarrassing, but it doesn't bother me at all. Pop culture is toxic.

I'm less interested in impressing people.

TV is marketed to a different demographic and appeals to me less and less as I age, which has freed up an enormous amount of wasted time.

I'm more and more suspicious of new products, not excited by them.

The older I get the more I value self-sufficiency and the less I believe in "we're all in it together".

Even though I try to stay tolerant, as I get older, the "woke overton window" moves faster than I can change my biases and prejudices. I can't keep up.

The thing that scares me the most about old age is that my health is going to hit a brick wall, and that I'm not taking good enough care of my body.

I'm most anxious/nervous about retirement: I think every day about retiring and exactly what I need to do and save to get there, and I wish thought about it that seriously in my 20s and 30s.

> The older I get the less it matters to me what other people think of me, which is liberating. When I was younger, people's impression of me was my problem. Now that I'm older, people's impression of me is their problem.

Same here. But to be fair, when I was younger, my future was uncertain. I wasn't sure what will happen 10 years later. Will I get a good job? Will I have a good relationship? Which skills will I gain, and which weaknesses will remain forever? With this much uncertainly, of course I was sensitive about other people's feedback -- even if in hindsight a lot of it was stupid.

Now... of course, anything can happen, and life can always change dramatically overnight... but I expect the following years to be mostly more of the same. And when people tell me what they think about me, I have more data about myself to judge whether their opinion makes sense. I also learned to recognize friends and avoid the rest of the world.

So it's not just me becoming wiser in this aspect; it's that my situation has actually changed to make this one aspect much easier.

Thank you for your post. I have a question, and I really don't intend to be mean spirited even though it may come across as such.

>I don't have enough money to retire but dream of it every day (See the above comment about my boss).

Software development (assuming you are are a developer) is a very well paid profession, and has been for many decades. This is the only profession where people who are 4 years out of school are often given 'senior', 'staff' titles, even at the most prestigious companies.

Have you been underpaid for a few decades or have you had some bad financial investments etc? Not sure if this is too personal but I was just curious.

Software development is only a well paid profession fairly recently, and only a very well paid profession if you are lucky.

I have been well paid (in the EU) since the early 90s in software dev.

Programmers have been well paid since at least the dot com bubble, that's a conservative 20 years, wouldn't consider that 'fairly recently' imo.

Also I would consider a bare six figure salary well paid.

Programmers have been well paid since at least the dot com bubble, that's a conservative 20 years, wouldn't consider that 'fairly recently' imo.

Outside of a few hotspots like Silicon Valley, programming salaries tend to ramp up quickly in the first few years then hit a plateau. Other professionals like lawyers, accountants, doctors start more slowly but their plateaus are much, much higher. This is why 25-year-old programmers think that they're rich. They haven't hit that plateau just yet, but most will, and sooner than they think. And not long after that they will have their first encounter with ageism. A lawyer or a doctor will never experience that, because his profession values experience. That is the hardest part of staying in this industry for decades, you get to see all your hard-won knowledge become worthless, for no reason other than fashions change.

The vast, vast majority of programmers aren't in tech firms, they are writing internal software for companies in other industries for whom software is a cost, not a profit centre. Those programmers are paid the same as any other mid-level office workers. These programmers are barely represented on sites like HN however so they are almost invisible.

I hit the plateau but managed to break into FAANG, which doesn't seem to have the same plateau. In Cleveland, the plateau seemed to hover around $100K - $120K. I think FAANG or certain unicorn startups avoid the ceiling that most companies hit, though of course it's a challenge to get into them.

I agree and disagree here. Certainly not old enough to be able to input on the wisdom/experience aspect yet, but from what I have seen in my time in this industry, investing your time in what is current is a surefire way to get left behind. The technology that sticks over the years are the things other people would rather take shortcuts to use, or wrappers upon wrappers upon wrappers.

With every abstraction away from the core computing libraries, you take a bigger risk and enter into a bigger gamble with your time.

I certainly know I am keeping miles away from node and webassembly (although the latter is interesting), simply because I was under a guy who has focussed his efforts not on acquiring fancy knowledge, but rather using simple techniques to achieve complex results.

Soon the very simple things I learned to appreciate, ended up being things I now use every single day to do stuff way more complicated than a person of my intellect should be able to accomplish.

Anyways, this got kind of sidetracked on the way, but I have to work with colleagues who have cemented years of knowledge in archaic tech, that while current at the time, ended up fading away over the years. They still have knowledge and skills, but they let their experience shackle their thinking, and oftentimes come up with extremely complicated solutions for very simple problems.

I think this is also the point in their lives where they got comfortable enough to think they don't need additional training, where I was very much taught that there is no limit to knowledge that can be acquired.

Just to be more precise, programmers are well paid in USA, London and some other exception. In the rest of the world we are paid like any other "office job".

IF remote jobs and wfh culture will rise, I would bet those salaries are gonna plummet down in the medium term

Generally, you are paid less in absolute numbers if you are located not in a rich city/country, but software devs earn very well comparatively to average income at any given place, and I dare to say it's true almost everywhere in the world.

>Programmers have been well paid since at least the dot com bubble, that's a conservative 20 years, wouldn't consider that 'fairly recently' imo.

That's because you're not very old yet.

I worked in state government in my past, and very few of the programmers there were making six figures.

True, I stand corrected. I think that's still the case actually.

Well paid != financially secure enough to never have to work again.

Yes, it's too personal a question. Also, your assumptions are overbroad.

I worked for a retail bank who had data that 50% of people earning up to around (I think) £70k had less than £100 in savings. Some people are very bad at saving, no matter how much they earn.

Nearly every accountancy firm or management consultant firm you can achieve senior associate within 4 years.

Can you please expand on that advice? What should we be paying attention to?

You're already getting the hang of it.

Just don't think about work, startups, money, etc when you are eating dinner with your family, or spending time with them. Harder than it sounds.

I had kids late in life, which I think has some advantages. One is that you've learnt that nothing lasts and it's important to be present in the moment, because it doesn't come back.

May I be so bold and ask what constitutes 'late in life' for you?

I like Dan Millman's lesson in a Peaceful Warrior

What time is it? Now Where are you? Here

I really like the scene in the movie where Socrates throws him off the bridge and Dan flips out and Socrates simply responds something along the lines "but while you were flying through the air your mind was completely focused on one thing. You even had a name for it: arghhhh!"

Man that book was epic when I discovered it all those years ago. Especially since I had a habit of visiting gas stations at odd hours of the night too.

Your teeth. Pay attention to your dental health.

I had mediocre dental care for most of my life. Not bad, but I never liked it. I got my first crown, was supposed to get two. It was traumatic. It didn’t feel good. I was depressed.

I found a dentist recommendation. Visited him, he looked at my teeth and said while it all met “the standard of care”, some of the old work would eventually need to be replaced, and the crown fit could be improved, and the other crown I needed could be replaced with an alternate procedure.

I got a good feeling from him. I spent the next 3 months having him re-do everything in my mouth. i was terrified and uncomfortable but I just went into it headlong. I was a bit flu$h, but it didn’t actually cost a lot.

It made all the difference in the world. My bite felt better. My teeth felt good. The tooth sensitivity to temperature vanished. I never think about My teeth anymore. They work, they are comfortable.

I think of myself as someone who is scared of dental visits. He cured me of that. I plan and attend each visit diligently.

I have a new dentist now.. I moved. I found someone I like. Understanding that my dental dissatisfaction was rooted in work that “met the standard of care” but which wasn’t satisfactory with each bite and sip I took was transformational.

I also floss diligently.

I asked a dental hygienist about this: "Why is there a focus on relaxed, spa-like dental practices? Who are these people who are scared of the dentist?"

She said it absolutely came down to past experiences. Apparently there are some really shitty dentists out there, in the sense of causing unpleasant experiences.

If you didn't get one of those as a child, you have no problem with visiting the dentist. If you did, dentists terrify you.

I never really thought about it that way before.

Yes, I had a rough-handed dentist as a child, and in one year, had to have a bunch of cavities filled. It felt like a horror show to me.

I don't care about the facilities themselves... but when looking for a dentist now I've put it out directly that I have a past fear of dentistry, and I've been assigned a hygienist who has a more careful bedside manner than others. It says right on my chart that I'm anxious about dentistry. The newest doc I've had to switch to was diligent about noting it and talking me through, acknowledging where I was coming from. Metal on teeth is also a thing for me.

I'm pretty much over the hump now, but it was an effort to work through it. A few good offices who where explicit in their response to my feelings did wonders, too.

And sunscreen. Taking care of your skin (especially your face!) is one of the easiest passive ways to help yourself age gracefully.

Take care of the big 3: Dental, mental and genital.

Whatever advice an older person can give it is problematic in that it is only one point of view, and might be wholly inapplicable to your life given the fact you are a different person raised in different circumstances. You’d be hard pressed to find a counsellor having heard you rant for 100 hours give you advice. They only give you tools.

I’m older and I realise myself that I need advice, I’m not in need of giving it.

Coincidence - You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on - stand on Zanzibar

be conscious.

be mindful.

I'm 32 and already starting to feel this way.

I was reading the comment and was like, hey- I'm 39 and trips to the grocery store tire me out and I REALLY look forward to naps on the couch!

> trips to the grocery store tire me out and I REALLY look forward to naps on the couch!

Well, then, have I got a global pandemic (and societal consequences thereof) for you!

35er checking in

This advice is gold, thank you for sharing.

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