You can look forward to not giving a fuck. Seriously. It is probably the most freedom you will ever experience. If there is one piece of advice I'd give to 18 year-old me it would be "don't give a shit about what other people think". Stop caring what others think, and do your own thing. Be bold, without fear. Try new things, without trepidation. Everyone says "be confident", but this is how you achieve that... don't give a fuck. That attitude exudes confidence, and that will go further than you think.
I'm looking forward to things slowing down. Less worry, less running around, less scraping. I'm patient, things get better while requiring less worry. I also look forward to getting a cottage, in whenever the pipe dream wormhole beams me up. We all want one, the thing is year by year, getting beach or "cottage country" property both skyrockets in popularity and price. That's far out of the picture at the moment.
I am pretty excited to get old, actually. I think I'm going to be pretty cool for the rest of my 20s and 30s, be a mediocre 40 and 50something, and then really start kicking ass 60+. I'm going to wear a ton of jewelry that jingle jangles when I walk, a bunch of shawls, and crazy hats, and have super long hair that has been gray since I was 35. (I already have gray hairs so I'm assuming I'm going gray early.) I'm going to spend all my time writing and painting and making pottery. I'm going to live in a big old house or townhouse filled with tons of books and weird antiques. Since I don't want more than one cat, I don't think I'll be a cat lady, but I do want a few animals. Hopefully a cat and a dog and maybe some tamed wild animal like a raccoon. There will be a rumor around the neighborhood kids that I'm a witch AND THEY'LL BE RIGHT. I'll hold full moon goddess gatherings with the other eccentric old ladies in my backyard and we'll sacrifice a virgin every solstice. I'm also going to steal all the time, yell at anyone that gets in my way, and put curses on people that piss me off. I cannot wait.
Sleep. Zipping around in a motorized scooter, just because I can. Wearing broaches, preferably large, gaudy gold ones with pearls. Old people can pull that shit off. Glaucoma. I have crappy vision - way beyond what laser can fix - and the only way to see well again without contacts is glaucoma surgery. In all seriousness, in the next 13-14 years I will see my daughter graduate high school, go to college, and I can once again reclaim my freedom. In those years, I'm looking forward to raising her with just the right mix of intelligence, sarcasm, confidence and independence...preferably without any unplanned grandchildren. Other than that, life is pretty much where I want it to be now, although I wouldn't mind a few zero's added to my retirement plan....
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Getting older for me has sucked immensely. Hopefully for others it has been a better experience. I spent my 20's and early 30's building a life, only to watch it slip away during my late 30's/early 40's. I am aware that the alternative (i.e. dying) sucks much more, but to say that I look forward to health problems, friends/loved ones dying, not being able to do what I want physically, losing my marbles, constant money concerns, and just watching what's left of my life become a negotiation in order to suck slightly less isn't a fair statement. No, getting old sucks. I know we believe, or have to believe, that getting older has benefits - otherwise, it gets depressing. But would I trade everything I have to go back and be 18 again? Jesus, yes, I would. Despite the crap that comes along with that age, the benefits are so much better.
I look forward to trying to be the sort of old man who can put the fear of the abyss into young people when roused to anger. Also, the lower expectations on my time will be awesome.
I look forward to building more things and buying fewer. I can already do the basics of carpentry, plumbing, welding, and I love woodworking but have neither the time nor the space to do it properly (yet). Give me a few decades of seasoning though, and I'll be alright.
I think I'll just be that guy. I look forward to wearing overalls every day and having a beard (because I can, that's why) and somehow having the magical power to attract fish and wild game like my grandpa did. I'm trying to save money now so it is less of a worry in the future and I look forward to not giving a fuck about having bosses and working at my own pace, however intense or lazy it is. I hope to own land up North some day and have a basic cabin on it, and if I'm really lucky there will be woods and a stream or lake nearby for me to bum around.
I would say watching my daughter grow up and make her life, but that is kind of a cop out. It implies that the purpose of my life will be vicarious enjoyment of others' accomplishments. Honestly, I tend to agree with VI. I can't think of anything I couldn't do now if I wanted to that would get better with age. I'm 48 years old. There's no reason I couldn't have already learned to hunt and fish, fix a car, frame a room, or anything else. The mere passive act of getting older isn't going to magically confer ancient wisdom in any of these areas. I can't say I'm looking foward to the death of my extended family members, colonoscopies, attempting to finance my retirement, bad knees, and worrying about getting enough fiber so i can take a decent crap. I need a fucking drink.
I look forward to being a freaky yogi granny with three cats. I'll spend my free time baking and talking off everyone's ears. Also, it'll be awesome to say, "Fuck my filter. I'm 80 years old. I'll say whatever the hell I want and get away with it." Except saggy granny tits. Nobody wants to hear about that.
Getting old sucks, plain and simple. Take a look around you at your family and loved ones. Parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and kids. Everyone that gives you a sense of family and belonging. Your entire support system. Now picture them all gone. It's an utter sense of alone like you've never felt. And you don't have to be that old to have it happen, I'm living proof. (My mother is still alive in a nursing home, but dementia has taken her away. She has no idea who I am. My sister, thankfully, is alive...but I never knew she existed till I was almost 30. I love her dearly, but she's working through her own issues. I basically haven't heard from her since I loaned her a substantial sum of money after I sold my house.) My once athletic body that loved nothing more then playing sports, hiking, snowmobiling or anything outdoors? Yeah, I can't do that any more, not if I want to function for the next month. Even something simple like turning wrenches on a toy car? I don't quite fold up into those tight spaces anymore and any great deal of time bent over? I'm walking funny for a week because I can't straighten my back out. My once long mane of hair? Gone. What's still there is kind of frizzy and about half gray. I do still have 20/10 vision. For distance. For reading, I need to pull out my Wal-Mart reading glasses, otherwise I'm pretty much fucked. The muscle tone it took many summers of bucking hay and working construction to build? Gone. And let's not forget, an unexpected downturn in the economy that wiped me out. 7 years ago I owned my own business and had a nice safety net in stocks that should've seen me through any economic hiccups. Only the economy didn't just hiccup. It burped. Then shit the bed. And then set the whole mess on fire and pissed on it. Everything I'd worked for, gone. Now I get to start all over and do it again. I've already died once, albeit for only 5 minutes or so, but I do remember this much about it: It was peaceful. There was chaos all around me as my friends freaked out, but I was peaceful, content and ignorant of any of that. It was nice. So that's what I look forward to: Death. And that, my friends, is what getting old is like. Good luck with it.
This thread so far: I'm turning 28 in a month and am actually looking forward to my 30's. I think I'm in the process of developing a more healthy, realistic outlook on life, and I'm working on not beating myself up over stupid shit that doesn't matter. Basically the "give less of a fuck" sentiment. Being young young (like < early/mid 20's) was great, but I'm enjoying being a full fledged adult. People take me seriously now because I don't look like I might be 16 years old, and I'll still be able to do all the physical stuff I like doing for quite a while. It's only when I start thinking 15+ years down the road that I start freaking out a little. It's easy to feel like you'll be young forever when you're 18, but when your friends start balding and popping out their second kids you quickly realize that ageing is a real thing and it's going to continue happening to you until you're dead. I'm afraid I'll wake up old one day and realize I haven't been living right… because honestly right now I have almost no idea what the fuck I'm doing.
I'm 43 and my wife is 41 and we both seem to have already turned into old people. Hell, the house we bought last year looks like the houses our grandparents lived in and my wife, who worked in real estate for several years, just absolutely adores it. We like coming home and having a bourbon or some wine just because it's Thursday, I've recently started smoking a pipe on occasion and we fully intend to start a little garden in the back yard this coming spring. I realize none of this is exclusive to "old people" however it's just part of us settling down as we get older. She has 3 kids, all moved out (one were pretty sure will get engaged and married shortly thereafter sometime this year) and I have 1 son who lives with his mother and stepfather one state over. So we have no children that live with us and it's been GLORIOUS. I truly believe she is an old soul and if I turn out like my grandfather was, well, that would be just fine with me too. We're looking forward to traveling more, have grown increasingly less tolerant of other people's kids, and prefer to stay home and cook with friends rather than a night out drinking at a bar somewhere. That's the good. The bad is as some have mentioned already: friends and family dying, the declining health from here on out - losing/graying hair, general soreness after any physical activity that it takes days instead of hours to recover from, and the prospect of just getting incrementally weaker with each passing year. My cousin and best friend said (before he passed away , way too young) that ideally, we'll live for a good bit past retirement and enjoy trips to our camp where we can fish all day and smoke as much weed as we want after.
I dreaded turning 40 right up until about 3 months before I did. Then, strangely, a calm came over me like I knew exactly who I was, what was important in life, and where I was heading. It's strange and I can't explain it, but turning 40 seemed to mark a time where I finally know who I am and am good with it. I can only assume as ine grows older that wisdom grows. The down side of that as someone else mentioned is seeing your loved ones disappear one by one. I am blessed to have parents who are still here and relatively young, but I now see the days are numbered, and it scare the ever living fuck out of me. Im not sure what kind of old man I'll be, but I think I'll be a pretty cool one. Lets face it, our generation will be listening to Motley Crue and Snoop Dogg, even if we're wearing our old man pants ( you know the kind ) and sensible shoes.