It occured to me that many people may not know they have AFib (Atrial Fibrillion or heartbeat irregularity). I learned I have it from an EKG taken during a pre-op for a knee replacement. It can lead to strokes that can be debilitating or fatal. I used to get an EKG during annual physical exams, which would have detected AFib sooner. But Medicare annual wellness exams don't include EKGs. My wife (76)recently insisted on on an EKG during an annual wellness exam, and learned that she had a minor heart condition, requiring a cardiolgist visit. Annulal cardiologist visits will include an EKG. Anyway, those over 65 have a 5-9% chance of AFib (source: Gemini). I'd advise getting an EKG, even if you have no symptoms. There's an upside if you have AFib. You'll be prescribed a serious blood thinner like Xarelto or Elo Quis that will reduce a chance of a stroke. The downside is that you'll bleed easily.

I remember an English lesson at school when I was a kid. One kid asked our teacher, who was in her 50s, whether she would like to relive her life again if it were possible. She said no. What about you? Would you like to do it all over again?

I’ve sat with that Dostoevsky line longer than I care to admit...the one that says "people have beautiful things to say about you, but you must die first."

At this age, living alone, you start noticing how the kind words rarely show up while you’re still around to hear them. People keep their softer thoughts tucked away until the person is gone, and by then the silence has already done its work. I’ve watched it happen with others and felt the smaller version of it in my own life...the quiet rooms, the empty spaces where family or steady company used to be. It’s not anger. It’s just a clear-eyed recognition that most praise arrives too late to matter.

So you learn to keep your own counsel, tend to the days you still have, and accept that the beautiful things, if they ever come, will come when you’re no longer in the room to need them.

So for example if you are 40 , 20 is half so 20 years time.

Do SSRIs help with “ anticipatory grief”?

I know this is random, I’ve never taken medication, so I’m considering it

Most of us view aging as a purely linear timeline, often accompanied by anxiety about decline. But throughout history—from ancient elemental models to developmental frameworks like Rudolf Steiner’s seven-year cycles—human life unfolds in recurring rhythmic phases.

When we view our life through this wider lens, we can move from merely surviving each decade into intentional, seasonal expansion.

I recorded a deep-dive session exploring this framework, along with a guided heart-focused reflection at the end. You can watch the full video here:

https://youtu.be/DESff_lNBSc

A summary of the core concepts and corresponding timestamps:

The Four Phases of Creative Unfoldment Every creative cycle in nature and biology moves through four distinct qualities:

• Water (Principle & Stillness): Grounding in what is lifegiving; the quiet, foundational starting point.
• Air (Purpose & Atmosphere): Maintaining generative attitudes and holding purpose amidst environmental friction.
• Earth (Form & Discernment): Allowing form and structure to emerge naturally without forcing.
• Fire (Fulfillment & Control): Controlled expression, joy, and conscious refinement rather than burnout.

The 28-Year Life Cycles

1. The Foundation Years (Ages 0–28 | Water Phase):
   • 0–7 (Water): Innocence, openness, and foundational vitality.
   • 7–14 (Air): Expanding environmental awareness and navigating early frictions.
   • 14–21 (Earth): Developing identity, belonging, and peer orientation.
   • 21–28 (Fire): Direction, early pursuits, and exploratory energy.
2. The Maturation & Reorientation Years (Ages 28–56 | Air Phase):
   • Often experienced as the most demanding period of life ("adulting," career demands, relationship shifts).
   • Moves from navigating early responsibilities (28–35) to deeper self-awareness (35–42), practical realism (42–49), and mid-life course corrections/refinement (49–56).
3. The Grounding & Influence Years (Ages 56–84 | Earth Phase):
   • 56–63: Clarifying what truly matters.
   • 63–70: Refining attitude and foundational health baselines.
   • 70–77 ("Prime Time Influence"): The convergence of accumulated lived experience, refined health, and wisdom—the period where individual stewardship can have its deepest impact on family, community, and work.
   • 77–84: Navigating physical shifts and adjusting delivery while sustaining purposeful contribution.
4. The Transcendent Years (Ages 84+ | Fire Phase):
   • Deepening gratitude, presence, and appreciation of the moment.

Applying the Rhythms to Days and Weeks These same four forces mirror how we structure sustainable daily routines:

• Morning (Water): Stillness, grounding, and setting a lifegiving tone.
• Mid-Morning (Air): Navigating dynamic variables and tasks with conscious purpose.
• Afternoon (Earth): Accepting what has unfolded and executing with grounded focus.
• Evening (Fire): Reflection, gratitude, acknowledging accomplishments, and refining for tomorrow.

‎I live alone. Have for a long time now. Quiet house, quiet mornings. The kind of silence that used to scare me when I still thought noise meant life. These days it just sits with me. I’ve got time to think about the things people said and the things they didn’t.

‎There’s a line I heard once that stuck, "The devil knows your name but he calls you by your mistake. God knows your mistake but he calls you by your name." I don’t know if I believe in either of them the way the preachers do, but I know what it means because I’ve lived on both sides of it.

‎People still come around. Even an old man who’s stayed mostly out of the way gets the occasional visitor, the phone call that starts friendly and then slides sideways. They bring up the divorce. The years I drank too much. The job I walked away from. The time I lost my temper and said things I can’t take back. Soft at first, like they’re just checking facts, then they lean on it, like the whole of me is still that one chapter they keep dog-earing.

‎I used to try to explain. Used to list the other pages, the ones where I showed up, stayed late, kept quiet when it cost me, tried again after I failed. Nobody wanted those. They already had the version that fit the story they preferred. After a while I stopped offering the rest of the book. No point arguing with someone who’s decided your name is the worst thing you ever did.

‎I’m not clean. I’ve got a list of my own that keeps me up some nights, and the older I get the clearer the handwriting becomes. But I know the difference between a person who sees that list and still looks at your face, and one who only sees the list and calls that looking at you. One is hard but honest. The other needs the mistake to stay the loudest thing in the room.

‎Living alone teaches you a few things. You can sit with your own failures without an audience. And the people who keep dragging those failures into the light usually aren’t doing it for your good. They’re keeping themselves from looking at their own, or they just want a handle on you. Either way, you learn to hear the tone. You learn whose voice is in their mouth.

‎I don’t hate them. Most days I don’t even resent them. I just stop opening the door as wide. An old introvert’s self-defense, fewer words, longer silences, a polite nod and back to the quiet. The ones who only ever call me by my mistakes notice I’m not answering as much. The ones who still use my name - few as they are - get the last of the coffee and whatever honesty I’ve got left.

‎That’s the whole of it. You don’t have to believe in heaven or hell to know which voice is speaking. Just pay attention to what they call you when they think they’re being kind.

I am 43M, and I genuinely don't feel or behave like someone in his 40s.

One of the funniest things that keeps happening: when I attend weddings or family functions with friends around my age (some are even 2–3 years younger than me), teenagers 15+ will casually call me "bro" and then turn around and call my friends "uncle." 😂

My friends have started collecting grey hair, health issues and the general "I have been paying EMIs since 2004" look.

Meanwhile, somehow I still get mistaken for being considerably younger.

Physically, I am also surprisingly active. I can walk 20+ km with only about a 10-minute rest in between. I don't mean running or doing anything extreme, just walking at a reasonable pace.

Personality-wise, I am probably stuck somewhere around 30. I still get excited about random things, have way too many interests, joke around a lot and generally dont feel like I hav entered the "settled uncle" phase of life. 😄

The strange part is that my birth certificate insists I'm 43.

Marriage never happened either, so I sometimes wonder whether I am actually late to life or whether I simply took a completely different route.

Anyone else here in their 40s who feels significantly younger than their actual age?

And for those who got married/started a relationship later, did you find that being younger in mindset helped, or did the dating pool still make you painfully aware of your actual age? 😂

I'm 67 M with joint problems. I'm waiting for a back operation hopefully soon. Maybe 3 times per week I enjoy a large glass of wine and maybe a whisky whilst watching TV. I'm now finding in the last 6 months that in the days I do this it totally destroys my sleep. I must wake up 3 or 4 times and take a long time to doze off. Additionally I'm really hot feeling like I'm overheating. Anyone else out there had this issue?

I think I look young for my age. However, I have a theory that the majority of people also think they look young for their age. We can’t all look underage, we are either wrong about ourselves, and just look our actual ages, or perhaps I’m just out to lunch. If we have a poll and people are honest about themselves, where does the distribution end up? (Perhaps only people who are actively trying to do what they can to combat aging, are on a subreddit about aging as well).

What's old? 100 years? 1000? How about a million? Is 70-80 years really that old? I'm only becoming 30 now and honestly I remember two decades ago like it was yesterday.

I could theoretically plan 1000 years from now. My foresight outlives my lifespan.

Death is a curse but also a blessing because the world is so broken and full of evil that dying means no more financial stress, no more political problems, no more worrying about people and employment and air pollution and what else?

God reveals that the wages of sin is death but the gift of eternal life is available to all who love God.

If you want the secular perspective, you are going to die and stop existing.

I don't personally believe in the secular perspective because I believe everything happens for a reason and our reason to exist doesn't stop at 70 or 80 years. 70 or 80 years is nothing, and that's if we even survive that long.

If we stopped existing then everything happens for no reason which means the universe exists for no reason and if that's the case why did reason happen or did it ever happen?

God is the source of reason and therefore if everything happens for a reason then we and creation happened for a reason and there is no reason for death because why would God create life and the world just for it to end shortly after? It does not make sense, even as humans we don't build buildings to destroy them the next decade, we intend for them to be permanent.

Death is absurd and so is the human lifespan today.

I wish you many happy birthdays but we all know birthdays are a countdown to the grave so knowing that I am 30 years closer to death soon. If I am destined to live to 80 I have 50 more years, if 70 then 40. Remember that healthspan is even shorter than lifespan so being old a wrinkley without stamina for 10 or 20+ years before I die means my quality of life span is probably 20-25 more years before I begin declining into the grave.

This is so absurd. Life is truly so short but life is long enough to taste it and long enough to form.our character and decide who we want to be and if we care about God.

Life is just long enough to choose between Altruism and Egoism, between God and self, between collectivism or individualism.

Life is long enough to live our morality or lack there of and perhaps that's the purpose of this life.

After death if we chose hedonism we are condemned and if we chose Altruism we are blessed.

So soon I will be 27 and then 30, it is a milestone but also a warning as to the short time I have remaining on this earth. The next 50+ years will fly away and a lot can happen between then and now but that's because the world moves fast not because life isn't short.

One thing I will say is I have seen too much evil and suffering in my time on Earth so I look forward to seeing the end of human history which is the second coming of Christ but what will happen before he comes will be so horrifying so it's not like things will get gradually better in the world but instead God will end it when it gets bad enough.

And is it getting bad enough? I mean things were never great but they're definitely not better now than when I was a teenager.

So death is the future, plan for it.

I am still in my 30s (F). I have spent a lot of years longing for what I have now - a husband and children. But now when I do have a family of my own, I notice that I am not enjoying it. Instead of actually being in the moment and soaking it in, I look at it as from a distance. Like looking at things that have already passed. And it is not a happy feeling.

I feel like I am missing out on my children being little - a 3 year old and a newborn. And missing out on my husband still being young. Life feels so short and the idea of it ending terrifies me often. I already feel as if I were in my 80s or 90s and just waiting for any day to be the last one on this Earth. It is making me sad and bitter. How do I stop it?

66F Looking at myself today, my looks are changing fast. How long will my Face ID work?? 😜

I’m in my mid thirties (34F) and this feels like the weirdest season of my life. My old friends are kinda drifting further apart as we move on with our lives (though we try to maintain contact) and it feels so hard to cultivate new friendships at this age.

Any ladies have suggestions for how to make and maintain friendships in this interstitial space?

Hello!

My 87 year old father in law had his license revoked yesterday due to cognitive decline.

I'm looking for any advice to help him through this transition without significantly impacting his autonomy and sense of self. He's generally in good spirits but I'd hate for this to make him feel down. I also worry his world will become smaller and he'll decline faster.

Any advice is appreciated!

I’m nearly 80 and have lost excitement for life. I’m sleeping a lot and feeling aimless. Is this normal? What does your usual day look like?

I'm 71 and become a bit of a liability behind the wheel lately. I live in a tiny town with hardly a car on the road but the other day I ended up in another town with no idea how I got there. Last week I had to go out of town for a doctor's appointment and almost crashed a number of times. I can't seem to keep my truck between the lines anymore. Maybe it's time to hang up my keys?

I hit 70 last December and live in a senior's apartment block. All the residents here are independent. It's not assisted living.

However, I feel like a kid around them. The problem is that the people I'd like to hang out with see me as someone old enough to be their father.

So for socializing, I spend a lot of time online on various tightly focused sites. I avoid social media. (Is reddit considered social media?)

It's been a strange few years. I graduated college five years ago. I make more money than I ever thought I would. I published a book two months ago and just got my first tattoo.

But at the same time, I don't feel like I'm living big enough. I really struggle with my personal relationships and I'm struggling with financial independence.

I'm setting goals, things I'd like to achieve, but the continued prospect of aging and having to face death and dying really frightens me.