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Is the first half of life better than the second half? (1 Viewer)

Is the first half of life better than the second half?

  • Yes

    Votes: 49 38.9%

  • No

    Votes: 45 35.7%

  • :shrug:

    Votes: 32 25.4%
  • Total voters
    126
Otis

Otis

Footballguy
Just had a pretty sobering thought. Statistically speaking, I’m about halfway through my life. And it dawned on me that probably the first half of life is better than the second half. 

First half of my life was pretty great. In general I’ve been fortunate to avoid major tragedy and loss. First half also includes childhood, which is an amazing and wonderful time many or most of us look back to fondly. Dating.  Met and fell in love with my wife. All the “firsts.”  College. Got married, had our children. Spent more time with buddies goofing off and doing single guy stuff than I ever will later in life.  I mean, all the great stuff happened in the first half. 

The second half? Well I haven’t finished it yet, but as things go, I’ll experience the loss of at least my parents and other family members and friends.  I’ll make whoopie a whole lot less than in the first half. I’ll be fatter and slower and more achy. Probably more and more health issues will arise for me and my wife. I’ll watch the vibrant loving home we’ve built slowly become more and more quiet as my children grow up and eventually move out and leave us.  The excitement and achievement of a career will only dwindle as the years go on. 

Seems there’s no comparison.  The first half of life is magical.  The second half sounds pretty depressing.  

Am I missing something here?  Or are we all just marching slowly towards our demise at this point?

I’ll hang up my phone with those big number buttons on it and listen. 

 
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So far, yes.  Second half could be amazing if you set things up right.  Other life factors can, or course, get in the way (e.g. health, being with the wrong woman)

 
I once saw a movie called "The Straight Story" a long time ago... and there was a quote in it that has always stuck with me and the older i get (45 now) the more it seems to ring true. The quote was " The worst part of being old is remembering when you were young" Anyway I vote 1st half of life, but I we are lucky enough, the 2nd half can be a time where we can find peace and comfort in our children and grandchildren. I'm starting to realize all the things i thought were so important as a younger man and the things that stressed me out dont mean as much to me now, and I think that has been refreshing. IDK

 
Otis said:
Just had a pretty sobering thought. Statistically speaking, I’m about halfway through my life. And it dawned on me that probably the first half of life is better than the second half. 

First half of my life was pretty great. In general I’ve been fortunate to avoid major tragedy and loss. First half also includes childhood, which is an amazing and wonderful time many or most of us look back to fondly. Dating.  Met and fell in love with my wife. All the “firsts.”  College. Got married, had our children. Spent more time with buddies goofing off and doing single guy stuff than I ever will later in life.  I mean, all the great stuff happened in the first half. 

The second half? Well I haven’t finished it yet, but as things go, I’ll experience the loss of at least my parents and other family members and friends.  I’ll make whoopie a whole lot less than in the first half. I’ll be fatter and slower and more achy. Probably more and more health issues will arise for me and my wife. I’ll watch the vibrant loving home we’ve built slowly become more and more quiet as my children grow up and eventually move out and leave us.  The excitement and achievement of a career will only dwindle as the years go on. 

Seems there’s no comparison.  The first half of life is magical.  The second half sounds pretty depressing.  

Am I missing something here?  Or are we all just marching slowly towards our demise at this point?

I’ll hang up my phone with those big number buttons on it and listen. 
Click to expand...
All your Happy Hour hookups when you were in good shape are now a distant memory too.

 
Otis said:
Meaning?
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There are a lot of people that do not plan for, say, retirement in their 20/30s.  They may believe the job they have will always be there.  They live for the day.  Some realize in their 40s that they need to start saving.  Many parents/family do not provide life coaching to teens in terms of planning a future.  

I'm early 50s.  In my case financial freedom isn't an issue as I am fortunate to have, at least, a monthly pension coming in for the rest of my days.  I have brothers and some friends that feel like they'll have to work well into their 70s.  My issue, without going into details, is with finding happiness in the second half of life.  I was much happier in the first half.  Hope to find more before I am finished.  

 
brohans life is what you make of it my advice is every once in a while dont drown it with booze just have a night with your significant other and kids if you have them and play a board game just laugh a lot and let your kids tell jokes and hit the sack early and then get up so you can see the sun rise with a cuppa joe in your hand go and volunteer at a soup kitchen or building houses for people or at a shelter just find something that gives you a sense of fulfilment so you can leave a mark on the world and tell others that your last name means that life is not just about punching a clock and making money but is instead about leaving the world better than you found it fellas that is the path of the brohan and i encourage everyone to try walking it  take that to the bank 

 
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Otis said:
Just had a pretty sobering thought. Statistically speaking, I’m about halfway through my life. And it dawned on me that probably the first half of life is better than the second half. 

First half of my life was pretty great. In general I’ve been fortunate to avoid major tragedy and loss. First half also includes childhood, which is an amazing and wonderful time many or most of us look back to fondly. Dating.  Met and fell in love with my wife. All the “firsts.”  College. Got married, had our children. Spent more time with buddies goofing off and doing single guy stuff than I ever will later in life.  I mean, all the great stuff happened in the first half. 

The second half? Well I haven’t finished it yet, but as things go, I’ll experience the loss of at least my parents and other family members and friends.  I’ll make whoopie a whole lot less than in the first half. I’ll be fatter and slower and more achy. Probably more and more health issues will arise for me and my wife. I’ll watch the vibrant loving home we’ve built slowly become more and more quiet as my children grow up and eventually move out and leave us.  The excitement and achievement of a career will only dwindle as the years go on. 

Seems there’s no comparison.  The first half of life is magical.  The second half sounds pretty depressing.  

Am I missing something here?  Or are we all just marching slowly towards our demise at this point?

I’ll hang up my phone with those big number buttons on it and listen. 
Click to expand...
Objectively you're right of course.  But for some reason old people seem to be really happy.  Probably some combination of retirement, watching your kids become adults/having grandchildren and maybe just getting a better perspective on things. When people study happiness by age the graph generally goes in a U shape.

 
It all depends on what your outlook is. If you want to be the guy on the bar singing Glory Days, then yes. But if you want to enjoy family life, kids, grandkids and the life and vacations that a broke 20ish guy could never afford, then the 2nd half wins.

I remember broke vacations, not being able to afford things because I had no money. Horrible weeks with awesome minutes mixed in.

Now I can go anywhere, do anything that I want on vacations. I can't wait to live 30 years of retired life and see the world, while watching my kids and grandkids get born and grow older. 

 
Looking forward to a rapidly approaching retirement. I'm thinking it's going to be pretty awesome not having to worry about alarm clocks and work schedules and to have constant 7-day weekends.  Maybe I'm strange, but an evening with my kids and grandchildren is a lot more enjoyable than any night I spent in a bar 45 years ago.

 
1st half better for me as an individual. 2nd half better for me as a human. Meaning, being a dad of 5 and watching them grow and multiply will be amazing. Also getting to give back to society is something I cherish now. It's rather rewarding to do things for others that will never be able to repay you.

 
I haven't finished the second half of my life yet so I don't have enough information to answer.  I have no doubt that the second half is shaping up to be just as good as the first half.  It's all about your perspective and what you are trying to get out of it.  If you have the attitude that what you did in the past can't be beat then  you are probably looking at the next half pretty pessimistically. 

It probably is proportional to the amount of hard work you put in for the first half of your life.  If you worked hard to set up a quality retirement then you probably lowered the peak greatness of the first half to raise the peak greatness of the second half.  It's kind of a tradeoff.  But in the end it is all about your mindset.  Make the most of everything and you will always have a good time. 

 
I don't know, I'm really looking forward to watching my kids find their way. Pretty happy I don't have to worry about wife, house, school, etc. 

My career hasn't gone as I'd have hoped, but that gives me a chance to look forward to a new chapter. 

I've got a hobby outside of work that I'm passionate about and looking forward to spending my free time getting better at also. 

I turn 40 this year. My 30's were way better than my 20's, and I'm optimistic my 40's will be another improvement. 

 
I was generationally lucky, in extremis, but this is what makes me wonder about the young'uns still in their parents' house in their twenties. I mean, i backed into more stuff than most folks have ever done intentionally because i was constantly putting myself out there. I had no particular talent but i had no particular doubt that i could handle anything in my path, so i free soloed as often as i could stand for the simple reason that i wanted two bites of everything. Only the young can do that.

Once a body stops producing growth hormone - approx 29-32 yo - doubt physiologically enters the human soul and one has to rise above it to do anything. Cocaine trumped doubt for me for almost a decade, so my youth lasted a little longer than most but crashed harder when it ended. And my life partner - the only human being i could ever stand for one day after another - was taken from me about that time, so i crashed onto a bed of glass when i did.

Fortunately, i quickly came to the realization that understanding could be as sustaining as experience and i believe the depth of my experience provided greater depth in understanding. I had no family, so i've made a life of that, creating worlds in my head and scribbling them down. Thanks to tall imagination and wide experience, i can now travel farther in a morning than most do in a year. I like it.

After all that, I can't answer the question. All my understanding came in this second half (i'm close enough to the end to say that), but all my stories are from my first and one wouldn't be the same without the other. The point of life is to improve oneself and leave the world better than you found it and i've completed that arc to my satisfaction and hope i'll be around long enough to enjoy that some more. nufced

 
Better isn't absolute.  

Which is better, playing with toys, or finishing a long term goal like writing that novel or watching your kid graduate? 

If you ask a 5 year old they'll pick toys, but the reason those toys are fun is because they haven't learned how they work yet.  It's fun making the hot wheels race each other the first time, but by now you've noticed that the left launcher triggers slightly before the right one.  There's no mystery to it.  New toys are still fun, but what's really fun is a new challenge.

That's why adults like magic, or suspense movies, or playing games - we love that dopamine rush. 

But when you're an adult you also stop getting excited about another scary movie or another hand of poker.  You've done it before.  That dopamine rush wears off.  You don't get excited from small accomplishments anymore. You've done thst, too. 

The only real satisfaction is things you haven't seen or done before.  It's why retired people love to travel.  Kids don't give a #### about travel, so what, this is a new place, every place is new. Did you know there's a swamp behind the Miller's house? That place is much cooler than Paris. 

Seeing someone else learn something is pretty great.  Teaching your first kid how to ride a bike or teaching your second kid better than you did with your first - that's exciting.  Teaching your 20th consecutive year of 3rd grade.... less exciting. 

Seeing yourself accomplish something is awesome.  You've never gotten that promotion before, this new career milestone is awesome.  Seeing your kid graduate when you've worked so hard to help them get there.  Those are things kids can't possibly understand.

But the flip side is that there aren't as many new things when you get older.  And even the joy of doing something new isn't as fun as it was once you figure out how to do new things.  

The only real way to enjoy the back 9 as much as the first half is to keep putting those challenges out there for yourself. Keep learning new things, and setting goals you care about and accomplishing them.  

There will come a time that's no longer easy, and the best part of your day will be keeping yourself amused and out of pain while you wait for a better day.  Don't let that be now.  Whether you thin this is ther better part or not, this is the best part you've got left. 

 
Agree this is going to vary person to person.

For me, I could easily see my second half being better, well, at least until it gets close to the bitter end.

Losing parents and others will not be fun, granted, and that is hard to overcome on the scales of "which is better."  However, the second half will have:

-Adult relationships with my kids.  I love my kids and we get along, so I am looking foward to this.

-Grandchildren.  This is a big one.  Being a grandparent is the opportunity to be the person with kids you love when you aren't stressed out as a parent.  I'm looking forward to spoiling them wrotten (assuming they come at some point).

-Just generally more money and less stress.

I'm not sure what form retirement will take since we got started later on that than we should have, so that is a big variable.  However, I think the "day to day" of my 40s-60s will be pretty good compared to the day to day of the 10s-30s.

 
I loved my childhood but my late teens to mid 20's were, literally, wasted years. Not saying I didn't have fun but it could have been a more productive time. Got married at 30 and the first 10 years or so were tough financially and physically due to hours worked but it was worth it now, in my mid-50's, as we are able to enjoy life more. With a plan to retire in a couple of years, if we can have a good 15 years together in retirement, the second half of life will blow away the first. I do worry more about death, considering my dad died only five years longer than I am alive now, a week after turning 60. Hopefully I can surpass my moms age who passed at 78. Health will be the deciding factor in your question.

 
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If you take care of yourself then don't get unlucky wrt health/finances then the second half can be as great or better.  If you don't then it probably won't.

 
Second half, easy. At least for me. I’m healthy with 3 healthy, good kids and a wife. Retirement savings are on track, too. When I was young? Poor as ####, cruddy jobs, drank a lot, smoked, etc. sure I had some fun here and there but nothing that would make me prefer my youth over middle age and beyond.

 
If you want any one thing too badly, it's likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.”

 
You should know this by now Otis - the current part of your life is the only thing that’s important.  You’ve lived all of your  yesterdays, you don’t get those back.  Your tomorrows may never come.  Carpe Diem!

 
If you died today, your life would be fully over. Would the first half have been better than the second? Would you have expected it to have been? Or was it just different?

 
AAABatteries said:
You should know this by now Otis - the current part of your life is the only thing that’s important.  You’ve lived all of your  yesterdays, you don’t get those back.  Your tomorrows may never come.  Carpe Diem!
Click to expand...
from the DickDale (RIP) interview posted by @krista4 this morning:

Wise men and the monks believe you don’t talk about yesterday because it already has been used. It was either good or not so good. Why talk about it? 
Click to expand...

 
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gianmarco said:
Life is like a bag of potatoes. You never know how many you're gonna eat.

-- Otis Gump
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Life is like a Circuit City line....the longer you spend in it and the closer you get to the front...the more you realize how much time you wasted being in it.

- Otis Gump -

 
We reap what we sow. When we're children we reap what our parents have sown. If they are happy, well-adjusted people with their priorities in order, childhood will likely be pretty good. If they are unhappy, addicted or are dealing with their own issues (usually stemming from childhood) then it might not be so great.

When we reach our adult years, we are reaping what we've sown the decades prior. What kinds of decisions have we made? What kind of spouse did we choose? How much did we save? Did we deal with our issues? Are we addicted? Depressed? Checked out? Do we take care of ourselves physically, emotionally and spiritually? Do we value our children over our career? Are we in a healthy place? Have we created a loving and safe space for our children to develop?

The answers to those questions will largely determine the next couple of decades. If we did things the right way in early/mid adulthood I think there's tons of satisfaction gained from watching your children grow into adults, have children of their own and repeat the process. Not to mention enjoying a more leisurely pace to life in retirement. If we don't raise our children properly or save for retirement etc. there can be a lot of regret and heartache looking back on how we've lived our life.

 
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You have a loving family.   You have (from what I can see from afar) healthy, happy girls growing up.  You can afford amazing new toys and experiences.  You should have the potential to be able to retire young (or at least, not-old). You're likely going to have grandkids down the road.  You'll have people to change your diaper when you start peeing yourself in in about 4 years.  

Oh Boo-hoo, you don't get to chase after bar sluts anymore.  Boo-hoo, it's been 12 years since you took @Righetti to the hospital because he knocked out 6 teeth after faceplanting when a sweet ### Warrant song came on at some jabronie's wedding.

Cheer up GB OATS.   It's what you make of it.   

 
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Second half for me.   Worked way too hard the first half and had to deal with alcoholic mom form 9 to 18. Lots of great times and memories in the first half, but all that hard work paid off and now I get to do exactly what I want to do each and every day.  

 
Depends on your childhood experiences. For me, no question that second half is crushing first half. Going from a redneck coal mining town in western PA to a much higher standard of living in the Puget Sound plays a large part in this. My marriage. My daughter. My career. All solid reasons to acknowledge that I'm living a charmed life now compared to my childhood. 

 
Well, considering your first half ends with you being mid-aged, and your second half ends with you being dead......Seems like the first half would be a no-brainer.

I think a lot of people will blindly say first half simply because humans tend to remember the good stuff that happens a lot more prominently than the bad stuff which is often even repressed.  I mean when I think of the first half of my life it's like a friggin high light reel of life.  I don't take much time dwelling on the bad stuff that happened, the down times, the defeats, etc...

And now that I am heading into the second half, it seems stress levels are way higher with all the responsibilities that come along with age - be it jobs, finances, relationships, children.

But I think for me the second half is going to be way, way better than the first half.  I've been very fortunate thus far in life, and have a lot of things that I'll be looking forward to and accomplishing here over the next 20-30 years.  Of course that death thing that is waiting at the end of the second half is really going to put a MAJOR damper on things, but que sera, sera 

 
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