It's not older individuals, it's more experiences ones. An experience's impact is significantly dependent on its novelty.
Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
121–130 of 288 posts
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#122Older individuals have less strong feelings, their bodies and minds are less primed for survival and mating, they're in the grandparent stage evolutionarily. Younger people feel things more acutely, they are more sensitive but also the worst thing that's happened to them is almost certainly coming, multiple times, and the same for the best thing.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#123Because they are dying from old age?
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#124> When older people say, “This is the best time of your life, enjoy it while you can,” that’s a form of abuse. I guess that these days anything can be called "abuse".
I wish I could say that to my younger self
Meanwhile I wish I could tell my younger self "don't worry, this is actually the worst part of your life and all the people telling you things will never get better are just wrong".
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but there is a huge huge gulf between "that was the best time of my life" and "this is the best time of your life. Not really. It's notional advice, offered in a spirit of kindness. You don't have to like it, but labeling it 'extremely rude at best' is absolutely infantile.
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I understand the sentiment but it’s worth noting in the US the median boomer _household_ wealth is 134k. More than 45% of boomer households have no extra retirement savings or income.
I think it’s pretty fair to criticize that generations lack of forethought but not so much wealth hoarding.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#126It's not older individuals, it's more experiences ones. An experience's impact is significantly dependent on its novelty.
To expand on this, when you're a kid, things that affect you emotionally can seem to have disproportionate impact on your life. When you're older and more experienced, you've been through many crisis situations, and you've seen that things usually work out OK. You know better how to deal with various situations, and you have a much more realistic predictions of how things will eventually unfold.
You probably also know, from experience, that even if you have an initial emotional reaction to something, that doesn't mean you should trust those emotions and roll with them. Getting angry rarely fixes anything, feeling sad is normal but it doesn't mean your life is going to shit, and getting excited about something is good, but you know it might not be worth getting excited too quickly.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#127My entirely unscientific theory is that like other cells, we're born with a limited number of fucks in our body. When we're young, we (instinctively, subconsciously) feel like our fucks reserves are plentiful, so we give a fuck about a lot of stuff. As we get older, our reservoir of fucks gets progressively depleted. The fucks are rarer, so we give a fuck less and less often. I've recently turned 40 and I can definit…
I'm not sure it's a discrete limited number of fucks, just the novelty wears off - after so many heartbreaks, surprises good and bad - you know you've seen something similar before and they slowly loose their power.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I understand the sentiment but it’s worth noting in the US the median boomer _household_ wealth is 134k. More than 45% of boomer households have no extra retirement savings or income. I think it’s pretty fair to criticize that generations lack of forethought but not so much wealth hoarding.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#129At age 20 or so, I read a quote in a book (on day trading, IIRC) that went something like: "Master your emotions, or they will master you." After thinking about it, I realized that despite identifying as a logical-thinking individual, I was nevertheless at the mercy of the more primitive parts of my brain. Sometimes totally, but pretty much all executive functions were influenced by it to a large degree. That might b…
I think we read the same book. Probably "Trading in the Zone" or one of those. I never ended up day trading much, but I sure as hell got that message loud and clear.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#130My entirely unscientific theory is that like other cells, we're born with a limited number of fucks in our body. When we're young, we (instinctively, subconsciously) feel like our fucks reserves are plentiful, so we give a fuck about a lot of stuff. As we get older, our reservoir of fucks gets progressively depleted. The fucks are rarer, so we give a fuck less and less often. I've recently turned 40 and I can definit…
I agree with your assessment. I believe it is an application of Spoon theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory