I’m fond of saying “getting old isn’t for the young.” As someone who believes there’s not much new under the sun, I’m thinking I picked that up from somewhere. But I looked for the source and found nothing. So maybe there’s one new thing under the sun. I’m trademarking it.
The point, of course, is that getting old can be tough. Thankfully, aside from the hair on top of my head fleeing (and taking up new residence on my chin, jaw and upper lip) and experimenting with a salt-and-pepper color scheme, I’ve experienced few effects of fast-approaching geezerdom. To the contrary, with age really has come wisdom.
Wall-E . . . eeeew
One valuable thing I’ve learned is that beating one’s head against a brick wall (figuratively, of course; I don’t recommend actually doing this under any circumstances) is often foolish. And for me, personally, something I no longer try to do.
Got a long-held belief that I fundamentally disagree with? 25-year-old me might fight the good fighting trying to tell you you’re wrong, wrong, wrong!!! reason with you. Present me all but certainly won’t even bother but my eyes probably will roll so hard they’ll do a full back-flip.
Mom and pop shop
I’ve also learned that I don’t want to (do) work for someone who’s not a parent. Bless all you nonparents out there. But in my experience, parents gain, and have hardwired into them, absolutely invaluable insights and perspectives on life that the vast majority of nonparents just don’t have. Somewhat relatedly, in my experience parents more likely than not will go home/stop working at a reasonable hour (by necessity, even if not by choice). Nonparents are far more likely to be gunners for whom the higher the number of hours worked, the bigger the badge of honor. And they often expect the same of all others. Blecccchhhh!
But as valuable a thing as anything I’ve learned as I’ve aged is that while one can add good things to one’s life that make life better, one can also eliminate bad things and often accomplish something of the same effect. To some extent, my bit above about no longer having any interest in beating my head against a brick wall is an example of this. Here are some others.
The hunger games
A lot of people love brunch. And some people lllllooooooovvvvvve brunch. The Missus probably falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, leaning toward the latter. I, on the other hand, fall nowhere on it.
Mind you, I’ve no objection to the idea of brunch. I’m 100% for adding an extra meal to the day. But I found that in my younger, going-out-to-brunch-more-frequently days, we more often than not went somewhere that: (1) we had to wait an hour or two to get into; (2) was the size of a postage stamp and packed to the gills, with constant bumping of people, chairs, and the like; (3) had waitstaff who seemed to mistake themselves for royalty and customers for peasants; (4) had a menu chock full of dishes with names that made one think that their author got paid by the incongruous adjective; (5) had no dishes as crazy bonkers as “ham, eggs, hash browns, and toast,” (not healthy (which is very unlike my typical breakfast) but this is my preferred out-to-brunch dish and my special treat to myself); and (6) cost a small fortune. It got to the point that I dreaded going out to brunch, and found myself more often than not angry after the experience was over.
Brunch spot waitress: What kind of monster are you!
Finally, after going to a particularly spot-on representative example of the places I dislike, I snapped. I told The Missus that I was more or less done going out to brunch. It certainly was the last time at that place or places of its ilk. I added that The Missus was welcome to go out for brunch anytime, but unless it was to someone else’s home (which I’m all for), I’d be sitting it out. And so, in the probably 15 years since, I’ve gone out to brunch only a handful of times at most. And let me tell you, Dear Reader, just not having to have to experience those angry feelings more frequently brings a smile to my face. And has left money in my pocket.
News outage
As I’ve explained on this blog before, I’m a proud and self-admitted news snob. While I’ve been that way to some degree at least since my college days so, so . . . so very long ago, I kicked it up a notch at some point. That was a two-fold development. On the one hand, I found and now fairly religiously read/watch/listen to several news sources. A strong second-tier roster of sources supplements them. But I also eliminated other news sources from those I’ll read/watch/listen to.
CNN? Gone, except perhaps if there’s a massive, unfolding event. My local newspaper? All it’s good for to me for the most part is box scores and weather reports. Time and Newsweek? Awww, you’re cute. Thanks for playing.
Eliminating these sources means that while I may get upset or disappointed when reading/watching/listening to the news, it’s because of the actual news. Not the news source doing an inadequate or outright bad job of reporting.
Own no!
And then there’s real estate ownership. As I’ve mentioned, if you like owning real estate and, better yet, have it as a major contributor to your income and net worth, I say bully for you! But for me, I didn’t like my property ownership experience. And I have every reason to believe that were I to rent out properties, I would regularly be driven nuts by flaky and/or nonpaying tenants.
So, I no longer own a home, and I’ve consciously steered away from owning rental properties. I recognize that I may be missing out on the ability to fully do what I wish with my home, or to reap easyish money. I’m cool with that.
In fact, it’s great. I’d much rather not have the possibility of negativity in my life. And to the extent that our returns on the money that would have been tied up in property (but is deployed elsewhere) is lower than it would be if invested in property, I have no reason to believe that, if there is a negative difference — and there may not be — it’s enough to make up for the headaches.
And in the end . . .
Maybe I’ve become more of a curmudgeon as I’ve aged. Probably I have (tho those who knew me in my younger days probably would say — with justification — that I was an accomplished curmudgeon back then). But I’ve recognized that it’s important and often profitable (or at least money-saving) to eliminate things from your life that can upset you when you can so that you can lead a more joyful life.
