Discours.es

For some reason, this article popped up in my Zite (algorithmically-curated) news feed. It’s great, including the bullet-point list, linked YouTube video, and quotation below:

Back up to that “general caring” point—on the one hand, when you get older you actually seem to care more about certain things, including the people you already care about, being a better person, sorting your shit out. But overall you can be so much more selective about what you care about and it seems, at least in my experience, incredibly easy to say no to things you don’t really want to do. And what’s more, it’s easier to know where to put your energy, because you can suss out up front what the payoff is.

When you’re older, it also seems to be easier to identify people who are not worth your time, and to confront problems with your loved ones when it’s worth it, and to know when it isn’t worth it. Also, feelings become less mystifying, easier to navigate—it’s not as if you can’t still get hurt, or disappointed, or profoundly sad and wrecked by things, it’s that somehow your body/brain/heart remembers that you already did this before. You’ll be fine. You always are.

And finally, the best part of being too old for this shit is being able to say what you think—particularly being able to actually utter that you are, in fact, too old for the shit. It’s the punchline that, unlike you, never gets old.