The 15 things that get harder as we grow older are taking risks, starting over, tolerating nonsense, making friends, staying close to family, staying in shape, handling change, spending wisely, trusting others, learning, living with past decisions, weighing opportunity cost, updating your views, keeping up with technology, and facing time running out. Most of them are not fate. They are habits that get more expensive with every year you leave them alone, which is why the best moment to work on them is now.
Hello Aluxers. What if right now is the easiest your life will ever be, at least from a few angles? Life might feel like it gets harder by the day, but we say it this way: every time life gets harder, you leveled up.
As always, here is the video version of this article:
Quick view: what gets harder, and what to do about it
| # | What gets harder | Why | Do this while it is cheap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taking risks | You have more to lose | Take the big swing early |
| 2 | Starting over | The cost is measured in years | Pivot before you are deep in |
| 3 | Putting up with nonsense | Patience drops, scam exposure rises | Set boundaries and verify everything |
| 4 | Making friends | School and campus end | Build friendships before you need them |
| 5 | Connecting with family | You change faster than the relationship | Treat people at their current age |
| 6 | Getting in shape | Muscle, sleep and routines shift | Stay in shape rather than get in shape |
| 7 | Handling change | Comfort wins over curiosity | Try one new thing a month |
| 8 | Spending wisely | Habits harden | Audit recurring spending |
| 9 | Trusting others | Fear of being taken advantage of | Trust systems and checks, not gut feel |
| 10 | Learning new things | Untrained memory, less time | Learn how to learn |
| 11 | Living with past decisions | More history to replay | Decide with your future self in mind |
| 12 | Opportunity cost | You have seen how it plays out | Say no on purpose |
| 13 | Changing your views | Identity gets tied to opinions | Hold views loosely |
| 14 | Keeping up with technology | Tools change every few years | Adopt new tools early, even badly |
| 15 | Facing time running out | You watch your peers age | Do what matters while you can |
1. Taking risks
When you are older, you do not want to take risks. Risk means being willing to lose what you already have.
The young hold an asymmetric advantage, because apart from time you do not have much to lose. The older you get, the less risk you want in your life. Ideally you take the risk early and reap the benefits of your courage later.
Or in cooler words: eat rice for a couple of years now so you can eat caviar for the rest of your life.
2. Starting over
Few people want to start over at 75. We are not saying it is impossible, but it is a lot harder than bouncing back from a poorly chosen major in college.
Starting over is something you get to do a limited number of times, because the cost is measured in time invested. You can restart, but be careful how many bullets you have left in the chamber.
The paradox is that to become someone else you have to leave behind who you were, and the longer you wait, the more you have to leave. Poker works the same way: sometimes you have put too much of your pot into a hand you are no longer willing to fold.
3. Putting up with nonsense
Our generation already struggles to put up with it, so imagine being older and facing it every day. Maybe that is why some older people seem grumpy: after enough years, a lot of things look like a bunch of nonsense.
Experience teaches you to spot it in people. That serves you well while your instincts are sharp, but when they slip, some people turn paranoid and others become easy targets. In the United States, the FBI’s 2024 internet crime report logged roughly 147,000 complaints from people aged 60 and over, with reported losses of about $4.8 billion, the highest of any age group.
Speaking of scams, people in our comments pretend to be us, use our logo and tell you to message them on WhatsApp. We will never do that. Report them when you see them.
4. Making friends as an adult
Many of us make a few friends while studying and keep them until the end of days. Commendable, but being able to make new friends as you evolve is one of life’s quiet pleasures. As you grow older it gets harder to meet people you do not work with or live next to.
The data points the same way. In a US survey from 2021, 12% of adults said they had no close friends, up from 3% in 1990, and only 13% had ten or more close friends, down from 33%.
The best time to make friends is before you need them.
5. Connecting with your parents and children on an emotional level
We will be vulnerable here, because many of you are in a similar situation. Plenty of people on our team find it hard to have the relationship they want with at least one parent, and here is why.
As you grow, the world changes alongside you, but the people who raised you do not always upgrade at the same rate. Once the parent and child control mechanism is gone, the playing field is level and you have to connect on a human level.
The same works in the other direction. If you want a real relationship with your own children, treat them appropriately for the age and stage they are in. The older you get, the harder it is to notice you are trying to keep things like they were, because accepting progress means accepting that time has passed.
6. Getting in shape and losing weight
The old rule of thumb said metabolism slows 10% every decade after 20. A large 2021 study of more than 6,600 people from infancy to age 95 found something different: energy use stayed remarkably steady from your 20s through your 50s, and then declined by roughly 0.7% a year after 60. So age alone is not what changes your waistline in your 30s and 40s.
What changes is everything around it: less muscle if you stop training, less sleep, more desk time, more convenience food, and routines that worked at 22 but stop working. Heavy nights out hit harder too.
One golden rule: it is easier to stay in shape than to get in shape. Use this stretch of your life, when it is still fairly easy, to build the habit.
7. Tolerating change in your environment
If there is a common thread in this piece, it is that people tend to resist change as they age. Leave everything as it is, because it is comfortable.
Unfortunately, the world is built for the people who are arriving, not the ones who are leaving, mostly because the lifetime customer value is higher with the young. This is also why many older people stop exploring and revisit the same places, hotels, meals and drinks. After a lifetime working out what you like, trying new things feels like a step backwards.
8. Spending money wisely
The theory says you get more conservative with age, and it makes sense. When you are young, you want to fill the holes poverty left in you and buy the things you never had, and you know there is more time to earn more.
At an older age, a bigger TV or a newer car impresses nobody, including you. The real danger is the opposite one: habits that have hardened, subscriptions that renew forever, and purchases made on autopilot. If you have a habit of buying things you do not need, check out 15 Things You Should Not Spend Money On.
9. Trusting others to decide for you
The older you get, the more you suspect everyone wants a piece of the little you have. Decisions start to be driven by suspicion, and anyone who has not lived as long as you looks incompetent.
We are willing to bet you can picture that one difficult grandparent right now, the one who keeps cash in the pillowcase and refuses to pay by card. The fix is not blind trust but building habits that let you verify: second opinions, written terms, and people you trust who can sanity-check big decisions.
10. Learning new things
We have a saying: the moment you stop learning is the moment you start dying. Learning keeps you engaged and seeking more.
It does get harder to store new information, especially with an untrained memory, and the demands on your time grow every year. This is why learning how to learn is the most valuable skill you can have. Pair it with a system to process, store and retrieve what you read, and you gain a huge edge in speed and decision-making.
Today that skill has a new twist: AI tools can explain almost anything on demand, which makes it easier than ever to start. The people who benefit are the ones who still do the thinking and use the tool to go deeper, not to skip the work.
11. Your decisions haunt you
You probably remember an embarrassing moment from childhood and replay it to this day. When you get older, your questionable decisions go on replay too. You wonder if you should have picked a different career, married someone else, traveled more, or stood up for yourself.
The good news: based on our channel analytics, most of you are not at that stage yet, so be careful with the choices you make today. It gets harder to live with the wrong ones.
12. You start to understand opportunity cost
Opportunity cost hits differently when you have seen how all your moves played out. Whenever you say yes to something, you are saying no to everything else.
Over a long enough time frame you can see that the moments you chose a short-term result over a long-term investment are what held you back from becoming the person you could have been.
13. Changing your views
Say you spend years working out who you are and building a set of values, and then society changes so much that your mindset no longer fits. You either move into the future or retreat into the cocoon of the past.
We are all the sum of our experiences. But the world was never moved forward by people who stayed safely on the shore where it was comfortable. It was moved by the ones who ventured out.
14. Keeping up with technology and the new generation
This is one of our biggest fears: that technology will jump so far ahead that we will fail to keep up. In 2026 that is not hypothetical. Smartphones, apps, short video and now AI assistants have each changed how people work and talk within a few years.
Try explaining your job to a grandparent. That gap in how people absorb and share information is one of the largest between generations. A twelve-year-old may not know history, but they know how to get any answer in seconds. The way to stay in the game is to adopt new tools early, even if you use them badly at first.
15. Accepting that time runs out
When you are young, you rarely think about the end. With age you watch it happen to peers and people you have known, and your brain starts to deal with it differently. The same instinct tells you it is time to have a kid because your best friend just had one.
One of life’s great ironies is that almost everyone older says they would love to go through it again. The best advice we have heard from Gary Vee is simple: remember you are going to die. Use it as a wake-up call to stop wasting time on nonsense and do what you feel you were meant to do, then live in a way you will be proud to look back on.
Keep reading
- Lessons you learn too late in life: the same theme, from the regrets side
- Decisions you will not regret 20 years from now: a practical filter for point 11
- Things that compound in life: why starting early wins
- Things you should not spend money on: for point 8
FAQ
What gets harder as you get older?
Taking risks, starting over, making new friends, staying in shape, learning new things and adapting to change all tend to get harder, mainly because you have more to lose and your habits are more set.
Does metabolism really slow down in your 30s?
Not as much as people think. A 2021 study of more than 6,600 people found energy use was steady from the 20s through the 50s and then fell about 0.7% a year after 60. Weight changes in your 30s and 40s usually come from lifestyle shifts.
Why is it harder to make friends as an adult?
School, campus and shared routines disappear, and people marry, move and work longer hours. A 2021 US survey found 12% of adults had no close friends, up from 3% in 1990.
Is it too late to start over after 40 or 50?
No, but it costs more in years, so the decision should be deliberate. Pivoting earlier keeps more of what you have built and more time to recover if it fails.
How do you keep learning as you age?
Learn how to learn: take notes, review them, teach what you learn and use new tools such as AI assistants as a tutor rather than a shortcut.
How can older adults protect themselves from scams?
Verify before you act: hang up and call back on a number you look up yourself, never move money under pressure, and talk to someone you trust first. In 2024 people aged 60 and over reported about $4.8 billion in internet crime losses to the FBI.
Last updated: October 2026.
