9mo ago

At what age do you consider life to be over?

From any hopes for a bounceback in career, a healthy love life, a more active friend circle .etc

For me it's when you start entering your 50s. You start to think more and more in how you'll end up being as you progress in age. Thoughts of the idea of how to maintain your health and how so much now is going to affect you set in. Thoughts on potentially retiring start setting in.

Things like getting friends and dates won't be impossible, but they'll be incredibly hard to get. Even if you have either, they most likely will not turn out how you expect to be whereas when you were younger, you had the time and energy on your side.

Careers and where you'll work will just dry up where you could likely be stuck just doing retail work for the remainder of your life or any minimum wage position.

Very few people make a difference in their 50s or already had their life planned out to where they're fine in their 50s. But a lot of the time, people really don't.

27 comments

It's over if you decide it's over. I've known people in their late 20's who have given up on all that already. And I've known folks well into their 70's who are happily married/dating, traveling, doing hobbies, healthy, etc.
If you give up on life, then of course you won't get anything out of it. I hate how people act like getting older just means you become boring, weak, ugly, broken down, slow, etc.
If your life is over when you turn 50, it's because you chose to let it be over.
- Wondering how old OP is, where they live, why they expect to be so lonely at 50.

whatever age it is that you die

10-20 years older than my current age. The number keeps moving as I get older.
As a kid: grown ups are lame.
College age: I never wanna be middle aged.
In the workforce: I can't wait to retire and do nothing. Etc

You start to think more and more…
No, this is what you are apparently doing. Knock it off.
This post is a rant consisting almost entirely of your own self-limiting beliefs. Got that? Beliefs. And they can change. You can change them.

I don't think it has to do with age. More like with your mental state and what you have gone through.

- My MIL had a good life in assisted living for several years. Most of her life was devoted to taking care of her husband. After he passed she got an apartment and became good friends with many of the other ladies there. They were always laughing together at dinner, watching movies, and playing games. There was a singer who would perform on Friday nights and they would all giggle about how handsome he was.

The fuck? Do you know anyone 50 years old? I'm in my mid 50s and work full time, still have two kids at home, go to yoga, lift weights, hang out with family or friends, go to shows, walk and play Pokemon go, grow a food garden, basically just live a pretty good life.
In terms of giving up, I don't think it's an age, more to do with conditions, a spouse or child dying or a chronic illness. So for some people it happens young and for others never. I did aerobics with an 80 year old lady and at the end of class she put on roller skates to go skate around the bay on the long sidewalk because she was retired so she could basically just play all day.
ETA: I think being able to be satisfied and happy is a life skill. Some people can't, they just never learned to. What is all that career progression and running around for, if you can't be happy with the life you build?

I don't think such an age exists. I'd say maybe age of death + 1.
I get where you're coming from, but nothing stops you from still living life in old age (except the physical and mental health concerns of course, but they can be mitigated).
Life doesn't truly end, until it fully ends.
- I think the problem with this response and other comments similar in vein is that - no fucking shit life truly ends at death. It's no secret.
  I guess I really have had some level of any expectations for people's level of intelligence to decipher what the question means and maybe prompts some answer. But no, some of you had to go and turn this into a god damn debate so you can flaunt around and show off to everyone how much you think you know and sharpen your little word jousting skills.
  The fuck with you...
  
  No life truly ends at death
  That belief is yours to keep.
  As for the rest of your comment,
  You ask a question, I answer to the best of my ability. You don't like it? That's fine. Just say so.

I'd say it's individual.
For anybody, I'd generally say at death. Even later in life you can still pick up at least some interesting hobbies, which will also help you find friends. I know a lot of people in ham radio and postage stamp collecting are older, already retired, yet they also attract young people.
Sure, learning may get harder, but the amount of free time will compensate for it.
You're still a person, no matter if you're 10, 20, 50, 80,... and you're not the only one. So life just ends with death.
Myself? I don't know. I can't encourage myself. It feels like I am late to anything. I never dated, yet most people I know did so in middle school already. I didn't yet learn any programming, yet I know people who did so since they were 13. One of my teachers was already fixing computers for others for money when he was just 10. I know someone who got CCNA certification mid high school. I know one 16 year old who seems to just know everything related to networking and self-hosting.
Meanwhile I only got my first proper computer when I was 14 and barely knew the concept of operating system. In 2 days I finally got Linux Mint installed on it, but I didn't even know what a partition is.
It just feels like I am dumb and late to absolutely anything at this point.
Since I've spent like the past 1-2 years spiralling down into these thoughts, for myself I'd say 16-17 (I am 18 now). I just wish to be dead.
But if you're asking because you feel like your life already ended, I am pretty sure you can still get back. You're definitely not the only one feeling like that, and that alone already unites you with a bunch of people.
- Comparison is the thief of joy. Don't despair because you're not following along an imaginary and self/societaly imposed "progress"/"achievement" path. You are still so very young and have endless possibilities in front of you. Take things at your own pace, learn new things for the sake of learning, and seek to better yourself incrementally as appropriate. Life will fall into place

There are no limits to anything you've mentioned, it seems more like you're just ready to give up on life?
Career changes can come at any time, the older you get, the more knowledge you have, and the easier it is to do something else unless you wasted your whole life playing video games. Look at the things you've learned through hobbies, surely something would apply to a job?
Why do you think a healthy love life would ever end? I've known many people who are great-grandparents, lost their partner, and met up with others who are in the same position. Now they have two huge families instead of one. If you can't get past thinking about sex, they make lubricants specifically for older people.
What do you mean by an active friend circle? Everyone changes their activities as the have a family and grow older. You adjust what you do as the body can't keep up. That doesn't mean you don't enjoy what you're doing, it just means you find new things that you enjoy. Hell some lady set a record for parachuting at the age of 104 last year, and the guy she took the record from got back out a couple weeks ago and set a new record (he's now 106). If you think you're ready to roll over and die in your 50's then you're not even trying.
Quite frankly I'm in my mid-50's. In the past year I actually decided to look at where I'm at for retirement because I intend to enjoy the hell out of it. Doing a little shuffling of my finances to try to boost some of my funds over the next 10-15 years, but otherwise I feel like I'm in good shape to kick back, do some traveling, and work on a bunch of projects. Retirement just means you get to start playing without work getting in the way. Even before then, I'm planning on building a trailer this Summer and cleaning up the motorcycle so I can get out and start riding again soon. There's no such thing as life being "over" before you actually die.

I'm going to live a long time in the memories of my children and grandchildren, hopefully greatgrandchildren. Being a grandparent has been pretty rewarding.

For me it’s when you start entering your 50s. You start to think more and more in how you’ll end up being as you progress in age. Thoughts of the idea of how to maintain your health and how so much now is going to affect you set in. Thoughts on potentially retiring start setting in.
Fuck, that's depressing. Basically just giving up at that point. Then what, just watch old TV shows until you expire? I'm hoping to get a little bit more out of life than that.
Honestly, my biggest fear is ageism in employment. I kind of assume at some point I'll have to start my own company or something like that to be able to continue working.

I think a better question is: when does it get so hard to change that you should give up trying?
And my answer to that is never. No matter how hard it gets, it’s always better to try.
I’m 41, and it’s hard to make friends and change my career. But I want to, and I have the choice to try or not try.
There is zero upside to not trying. So it doesn’t matter how small the effect becomes; the effort will always be worth it over no effort.

Whichever age your heart stops beating permanently. Thatll be the end of it.

In my perspective, the title and your first sentance are not the same thing. Each person lives for something but it is not limited to their career, friend or love life. And so, it can be literally at any age, from 0 to infinity.
- ...What?

I think there's not really a hard and fast expiration date. I think it's more of a probability gradient which can skew from person to person. Career bounceback depends on industry, fitness, credentials, network, etc. Love life depends on personality, looks, intent, intelligence, sense of humor, stability, etc. A loser in their 40s can't even really compete with somebody in their 60s who's on top of their shit.
I think that if you're concerned about this, therapy and/or meditation might help you to get uncomfortable enough to identify aspects of yourself that need work to improve. Small changes can yield big advantages in terms of tackling specific goals. Everybody can benefit from therapy, so don't let some weird stigma scare you out of getting the best out of life.

I'm 40 and I've pretty much given up on ever enjoying life, I'm just coasting waiting for the end. I wish it would hurry up but I'm afraid that I'll end up living 50 more miserable years.
- Life is a series of ups and downs. Try to remember that neither lastd forever.

It is implicit. You cannot have life without death, nor can you have an end without a beginning. There is no past. There is no future, and there never will be. The past exists only as a manifestation of memory just as the future is merely a manifestation of expectations. There is only now.
At what age do you consider life to begin??
if you want to make changes. start now.

Past that, its just grinding until you either reach a satisfied point in life or until you fail.

I think there's a lot of people's lives that are generally over by some of the responses in the comments and the scoring. Geez, screechy people.

27 comments