Do people always get more bitter as they get older?

[mids2019]

Just this really.

Many of the young people I meet in their early 20s are full of hope for their future and engage with their careers with a passion and lack of cynicism.

Give it 30 years and divorce, career failures, boredom, family pressure etc. seem to drive the positivity of people replaced with world weary cynicism.

Is this always the case or are there means of staying young at heart?

God yes I’m 43 and such a cynic now

🙄here we go with another tedious ageist thread

I was a real Pollyanna when I was younger. Now I'm more Catherine Tate's nan!

Because reality sets in. People begin to realise they won’t be rich/famous/amazing

However- I think many people become kinder and wiser

Bitter? Sometimes.

Realistic? Absolutely.

I do think some men become more curmudgeonly as they get older .

I certainly haven't lost my zest for life , keep yourself relevant , keep on top of tech, engage with people of all ages .
What I would say is having a job you love , if you are 24 and hate your job imagine how you'd feel doing it 30yrs later . You have to change a bad situation , relationships , toxic people begone , in fact anything that drags you down . Ageing well is all about attitude .

Not ageist just an observation. I am old myself and have become more cynical though I try to challenge it

It feels like a lot of social interactions change with age. Perhaps we become naturally more guarded and are conscious not part too much into others' affairs or overshare.

With age & experience people realise what a crap place our society is.

I imagine there will be too much cynicism on MN to really give this question much thought. It is a presumed notion that growing older can result in one becoming less open to new ideas, risk taking and positive forward thinking, but I don't exactly know why.

I think that over the years, many aspirations and dreams are put aside, and the tendency to believe that youth correlate with naivety doesn't help much either. One the one hand, we are supposed to learn as we mature, yet on the other the mind becomes less flexible.

I often hear that people become more conservative with age, although I haven't experienced this within my family or friend groups personally. There is also this idea that certain privileged generations took the cream off the top then drew up a drawbridge behind them.

It is definitely true that many older adults become angrier, more embittered by life experience, perhaps losing touch with any innate softness of compassion for their fellow humans. There is a scrabble to embrace positive thinking, mindfulness and zen attitudes, but it rarely surpasses trends of the moment - lives are hectic and full of pain and worry, even in the top percentage of earners, life can be cruel.
I strongly suspect our cultural emphasis on money and property above all else can leave a bitter taste, as such materialist achievements do not touch the depths of desire or passion that we started out with as teenagers. We become wary of new ideas, thinking we have it all figured out - and that any new concept that might make things better will be abused or lead to entitlement.

Our culture on general is at odds with compassion and progressive ideas. We like to think we are smart, intelligent, yet there is a definite sense of people not wanting others to profit or succeed at our expense, even if that means destroying our services and infrastructure - it really is like pulling in the drawbridge.

No, I'm much more Zen. More accepting, more peaceful, more keen to 'let it go'.

Yes, in my experience.

Not my mum though. She is relentlessly positive and forgiving at 75.

I have become a lot more risk averse seeing the pit falls others have encountered. Cynicism about employment and knowing career change becomes more difficult as you age doesn't help.

Yep! I pretty much hate everyone now. I have become intolerant to many many people. I only really like my son, dogs and my mum.... maybe 2 or 3 other people. I think with age and experience you either go with it or it fucks you up. I've been exposed to too many arseholes that have fucked me up.

@wildingtree

Great post

When people are young they have a lot of hope. They think they can achieve things. Then they find out through bitter experience that others are selfish and mean, they gatekeep and judge. They realise that nepotism and money are what get you places, not talent and hard work. And they become jaded. Of course the world was always like that, they just didn’t know it.

I think my social circle has definitely shrank and I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. The need to socialise to impress decreases and in my case I feel it tiring. With a family and job pressures socialising becomes group therapy imo.

Working relationships become more formal in my experience and governed by status.

I think as you get older you do, but you have to remember to reign it in.

I remember asking a friend who worked in an old peoples home this question years ago. She replied that nice young people become nice old people, and that miserable young people become miserable old people.

So as I say, I keep trying to remember to keep myself in check.

I also switch on the radio in the morning and listen to the cod psychology of the likes of Chris Evans and think you can only afford to live an introspective , mental health aware, flexible lifestyle with money

Easy to be positive with 50 million in the bank!

Ah no, not at all, not me, we'll, most of the time anyway

I am only becoming romantic and sentimental with age

Love kids, even other people's don't even mind teens (they are fun) or screaming babies (poor wee things) and other people's dogs

I find the older I get, I realise we are all chasing those same rainbows, we all have disappointments, we all have sadness in our lives, and by giving people a break or a second chance you often find most people are nice and worth getting to know

The ones that are dicks, well, they will just have to live with the knowledge they are dicks and I avoid/ignore them

I am def mellowing with age

Is the point to mellow when you have grown children and hopefully fewer financial considerations .

It’s the U curve. You’re not old enough yet 🙂

I also think that a focus on MH can cause young people to overshare and to his can be dangerous in a career setting. Being guarded seems to be as natural defence mechanism with age and I'd wished I'd learnt that lesson earlier.

I have become too tired to think about campaigning issues such as climate change or social equality which is disappointing .

It will also depend upon what you have 'put in' or paid in, and how you perceive that to have been rewarded.
A lot of people feel demoralised and cheated by life, having followed the prescription, done what they thought they ought to do. There's probably a lot of regret and sensations of 'what for' going on around us.

We reject thoughts of an existential nature (largely) and call anything deeper than a mortgage contract 'woo'.
We try to reconnect with nature, but there's a sour taste as so much that is deeper and natural within us has been grossly over-commodified.
Capitalism doesn't help, but we can't see an alternative..
It is absolutely possible to be aware, curious, and open (spiritually or simply questioning) without the restrictions of religion.

I never took the prescribed path, so no mortgage, kids, high powered career. I followed what pulled me inside which definitely has it's drawbacks in a society like ours. We are human, and we crave more security and certainty, but this is never a given. We 'work' for a slice of that security, but bad things still happen.

As we age, we become convinced that 'going with the flow' is for fools...but is it always? We are dependent upon our society for a lot of that security (housing, food, jobs, health, etc) but there's this sense of so much more, just out of reach.
I think this is what a lot of new age Buddhist-type books are cashing in on; our sense of loss and restlessness in an age where technology threatens to outthink and outfeel us.
They say money is the root of all evil, but I wonder if that is just one perspective amongst many. It doesn't seem to be able to solve that gnawing sense of insecurity. I honestly believe the answers lie within, and it's a journey that has no security or safety button!

I always thought it was a good idea to ask oneself "if i was on my deathbed, what would I regret, and what would I be most satisfied with?"

I do agree with the Dalai Lama one one thing - compassion is out of fashion. We do not trust our fellow humans, and this is exacerbated by a very toxic press in the UK that literally urges us to look down on, distrust and loathe our fellow beings. I can't see how that can end well.

I am certainly not bitter in any way but I do tend to worry about stuff that never even entered into my head before such as missing the bin collection or should I have brought my coat !