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I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

theguardian.com

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Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#2
>>"After 50 one begins to recognise in oneself a growing resistance to change, if only because it so often nullifies years of hard-won training"

This really struck home to me. It's true: we teach ourselves life hacks and gradually they become redundant as different life skills are needed.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#4
I am 60 years old and as a person always learning I have accumulated a huge stack of knowledge and I think my mind is in a very good shape so I still can learn new things quickly. Long time ago I found a good balance between life and work, and a good paid job by european standards. The only problem is that sometimes I envy the 200K $ paid jobs, but there are two main walls to pursue that salary: First: I have no work experience in the IT sector. Second: I have never used AWS and other cloud services.I am risk adverse and receiving a huge bill for cloud services while learning AWS is something that I have avoided.

I can solve leetcode and hackerrank problems more or less easily, have a CS and math degree, a Ph.D. in Math, can program in a long list of computer languages, know a lot of stats, machine learning, algorithm, complexity, etc.

But at 60, if you have learned to focus in what is important, you will be able to provide an answer to many unknowns and that is a precious skill. So to summarize, at 60 I am in my best moment but you always want more (now is more money).

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#6
post #2

>>"After 50 one begins to recognise in oneself a growing resistance to change, if only because it so often nullifies years of hard-won training" This really struck home to me. It's true: we teach ourselves life hacks and gradually they become redundant as different life skills are needed.

But also I'd like to think we get better at distinguishing between good changes and bad changes. We should resist the bad changes, or at least explain ad nauseam to the kids that their proposed change a) has been tried before and was crap, or b) is the beginning of the end, or c) is against the natural order of things. ;)

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#7
post #2

>>"After 50 one begins to recognise in oneself a growing resistance to change, if only because it so often nullifies years of hard-won training" This really struck home to me. It's true: we teach ourselves life hacks and gradually they become redundant as different life skills are needed.

But also I'd like to think we get better at distinguishing between good changes and bad changes. We should resist the bad changes, or at least explain ad nauseam to the kids that their proposed change a) has been tried before and was crap, or b) is the beginning of the end, or c) is against the natural order of things. ;)

Over time I've gotten better at letting others fail. I failed a lot during my career, especially when I was young, and it seems to have worked out for me.

Re: I’m nearly 60. Here’s what I’ve learned about growing old so far

#10
post #4

I am 60 years old and as a person always learning I have accumulated a huge stack of knowledge and I think my mind is in a very good shape so I still can learn new things quickly. Long time ago I found a good balance between life and work, and a good paid job by european standards. The only problem is that sometimes I envy the 200K $ paid jobs, but there are two main walls to pursue that salary: First: I have no work…

Have you looked at the free tiers offered by AWS or Azure? It's a great way to learn without spending anything.
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