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u/j0hnnyWalnuts 4h ago
Uh, we have to work until 67, fam.
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u/WhatevUsayStnCldStvA 4h ago
I’m 36. I expect it to be bumped up to at least 72 by the time I get close
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u/Objective_Look_5867 4h ago
Im 33. I have absolutely 0 delusions i wont be forced to work until the moment I drop dead while on the job somewhere. Thats if they dont cull the population once they automate most jobs and decide an unruly population isnt good for their bottom line
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u/Urtan_TRADE 3h ago
Im 28, and I think that people my age who expect any form of state support in old age are absolutely delusional.
The only support in old age funded by state I expect are going to be suicide booths from Futurama.
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u/moarwineprs 3h ago
Early 40s with boomer parents. While I think some of my dad's financial advice may bit a bit out of sync with the financial realities of current day-to-day living (though not entirely wrong), I'm really glad he insisted I max out my 401k as soon as possible and to fund IRAs because pensions are going away and there would be no social security by the time I retire.
My company did have a pension when I started, but it only lasted five years for me before the company retired it. As for social security, well we know how that looks nowadays.
While things can still go more to shit (whatever powers-that-be that may be listening: please... let's not), I'm currently not too worried about retirement. I am however terrified for my kids'.
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u/ExpertTranslator5673 2h ago
While things can still go more to shit (whatever powers-that-be that may be listening: please... let's not), I'm currently not too worried about retirement. I am however terrified for my
I just retired at 55. I've got enough money for myself so my inheritances will go directly to my children.
Boomer parents will do something good at least and help out their grandchildren.
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u/Cowboywizzard 3h ago
To be fair, I'm 50 and folks were saying social security and Medicare would disappear before now since I was like 8 years old.
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u/Geno0wl 2h ago
Two years ago I would agree with the you. Today? Today we have a president who is actively destroying the federal government in order to get rich. SS is 100% actually on the table now
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u/RibbitCommander 2h ago
It's like demographic collapse. How many time have people guessed at an "apocalypse" only for reality to disappoint.
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u/ortiz13192 3h ago
I think they still cost a quarter, bender used the ol’ quarter on a string trick to fund his attempt.
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u/regoapps 3h ago edited 3h ago
Suicide booths take up precious real estate. Instead, they’ll install a cheap wheelchair ramp on the bridges where you can just wheel yourself off like self-serve drive-thru.
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u/Whut4 3h ago
Have you voted for the most liberal electable candidates you can? No? You are voting for no support for yourself. Tax billionaires much more is the only way to do it.
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u/j0hnnyWalnuts 3h ago
This is the only thing that will save teh US. Return to a time where we taxed the rich appropriately.
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u/hingedcanadian 3h ago
Exactly this. I argued with my brother the other day, I was saying it's disgusting that Elon is worth $700b, he would argue that without billionaires our society would collapse. I have no idea how he's been brainwashed but it's funny hearing this from a 40 year old man who hasn't had a full-time job in 8+ years and lives off the grace of friends. Plus he also believes he'll be a billionaire soon "once I get serious and start up a business".
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u/Markus4781 2h ago
Norway recently raised the tax for the rich and it caused a massive loss in tax revenue because the rich decided to leave. It's not so simple.
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u/discsinthesky 1h ago
Sure. But this is the US, access to our economy is pretty appealing to the rich.
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u/TicklingYourMomsAnus 3h ago
Fake user account with no comment history chastises another fake account with no comment history for a theoretical voting record that can never exist.
Peak reddit right here. Just two bots talking, and one of them is still an asshole
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u/Techno-Diktator 2h ago
No candidate that actually gets into office will genuinely tax billionaires enough, it's all a big club and none of us are in it.
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u/MyLittleDroneyBF 2h ago
I already took 3 mini retirements... I took almost 2 years off backing 2010, a year off for covid, and then went back to school in 2022 for cyber security, just in time for Ai to start replacing people, and now I'm back where I started in Healthcare lol.
I'll die in the hospital I started working at in 2012, more than likely while working in it.
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u/Firm-Conclusion-4827 3h ago
People today(boomers) think it can’t happen, I always tell people to look at what their doing in Gaza, 300,000 plus dead mostly women and children after Hamas fighter were killed, the world watched and simply condemned Israel but did nothing, now tech billionaires & Trump are talking about making a Tech city on the graves of all those innocents, imagine what they could do to their own citizens in the near future with better technology to control power?
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u/JeremiahsBirdsnBikes 3h ago
I hope people are down voting you because they're uncomfortable with how right you are, because you are.
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u/Shark7996 2h ago
We are sleepwalking through a new Holocaust after almost a century of "never again" getting drilled into our brains from birth. School shootings hardly raise an eyebrow anymore. Political assassinations are all but applauded. Violence to strangers on TV just is what it is. How long until violence to our next door neighbors just is what it is?
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u/justin107d 4h ago
Same, 65 was chosen because it was life expectancy at the time.
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u/young_skywalk3r 3h ago
At the rate we’re going, it’s gonna be back there before too long.
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u/Ghaarff 3h ago
I am 39. I suspect retirement won't be a thing when I am in my 60s unless we have some major changes with our government. The current regime expects people who aren't independently wealthy to work until they die.
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u/Express_Culture2488 2h ago
32 here, it's already 70 here (and there are plans to raise it further)
We've been pretty much told that if we won't save for our retirement, there will be no retirement. Like right now every single working person in the country gets their paycheck gutted so that we can afford the "promised" retirement... which they promised for themselves, fuck the future. It's one generation that didn't see war and probably won't see one in our country, but I'm afraid there will be a conflict within 10 years here.
It gets so frustrating when you try to talk about how people working now are paying your retirement, you paid like 1/15th of it when working, it wasn't enough, not even close so now every paycheck has like 20% off just to keep the retirement money running. Not for you obviously, it's for the promised ones.
So how much exactly do these people get retirement payments? Tbh not sure, but my grandma went into early retirement while being 60 yeards old. She has said multiple times how she simply cant survive on the pennies that she "earned". Now how much does she get?
Fucking ~2400€/month AFTER taxes. Fuck me, I'll be working till I'm dead and around that time the whole retirement pyramid scheme has fallen. I sense some fuckery here, it'll be like "we're screwed guys so as a country working together, you'll need to work until death, if you're not able to work we'll give you 30 euros per week for food, shelter can be shared with other people in similiar situations"
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u/Paradox830 1h ago
And with average lifespan falling instead of increasing pretty soon we’ll be at that magical place our overlords want where we work all day every day until we eventually fuck off and die and don’t bother them anymore
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u/Wiwwil 1h ago
Same here. Either that or I won't have it or I'll die before. I'm try to stop by the time I'm 55 and work half time or something but I'm not even sure it's feasible
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u/TechTechOnATechDeck 3h ago
31,and I know I’ll never retire my 401k to me is a rainy day fund.
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u/TheFinestPotatoes 3h ago
You will get old some day and wish that your younger self had been more disciplined
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u/Cowboywizzard 3h ago
Yeah. Or, get run over by a bus tomorrow, who knows?
Who am I kidding, we cant afford buses, the rich need another tax break.
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u/TheFinestPotatoes 2h ago
Save 10% of your income for 40 years and you’ll have enough to retire on.
You can do that.
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u/Mean_Muffin161 4h ago
Why would you say that number?
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u/GreaterMichiganMaps 4h ago
belgium
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u/Mean_Muffin161 4h ago
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u/Forsaken-Arm-7884 2h ago
“The seraphim touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this coal has touched your lips; your guilt has been taken away and your sin atoned for.’”—Isaiah 6:7
The 6-7 moment can be read as a digital spark that burns away societal masks revealing the lack of the ability for the older generation to create meaning for the younger generation through emotional intelligence. The meme becomes an emotional cleansing ritual — the absurdity of a new meme revealing the emotional illiteracy of our current timeline that shows the limited emotional and mental bandwidth of society through authority figures or power structures silencing or dismissing the lived experiences of those using the new meme that appears to currently have not all that much meaning.
“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like some others do, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”—Matthew 6:7
Here the meme mirrors social-media noise — endless comment loops where people believe quantity equals connection since others are not instilling meaning for the new meme. The 6-7 meme seems to be highlighting that it takes focus and attention to the meaning behind words so that a meaningful message can be created through introspection or reflection on lived experiences to help guide our behavior towards more prohuman actions that avoid dehumanization and gaslighting.
“Philip answered him, 'Many denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.’”—John 6:7
A snapshot of scarcity logic: everyone hungry for meaning, nobody sure what feeds them emotionally, even the older generations. The 6-7 meme becomes a potential meaningful loaf that could multiply through creating that meaning with reflection and deep thought such that the meme transforms from something people say but are not sure what to do with on a meaningful level into an integrated piece of knowledge that can be used to help humanity find more well-being and less suffering.
“It has no commander, no overseer or ruler.”—Proverbs 6:7
The meme as unprocessed emotional wisdom. No admin, no moderator, no authority figure — a symbol wandering freely, teaching through its refusal to be silenced. A reminder that a new emotional truth sometimes waits to emerge from within seemingly random chaos.
“For the one who has died has been set free from sin."—Romans 6:7
Metaphorical death-as-freedom energy. The 6-7 meme might be waiting to gain a more meaningful identity like a person waiting to hear the word of the Lord of their emotions — every repost of the meme could be seen as a moment to gather additional emotional insight. Instead of allowing the meme to remain meaningless, it could receive an infusion of meaning from others who have the bandwidth available to introspect on it on a deeper level through their lived experiences.
"Everyone's toil is for their mouth, yet their appetite is never satisfied."—Ecclesiastes 6:7
The 6-7 meme as a hunger for connection/meaning/dopamine. Everyone posting, commenting, reposting—toiling for engagement, for laughs, for that hit of "I'm part of something." But the appetite is never satisfied because society is seemingly designed to keep you spiritually and emotionally starved. The algorithms feed you styrofoam-tier data that almost never feels meaningful. The meme becomes a symbol of our collective starvation: we're all working (posting) for our mouths (engagement), but we're never fed (fulfilled). The meme is both the hunger and the attempt to feed it.
"So the Lord said, 'I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.'"—Genesis 6:7
The 6-7 meme as apocalyptic reset energy. God looking at humanity and going "this emotionally ignorant and anti-human society seems almost irredeemable unless justified otherwise." The meme becomes a metaphorical flood—potentially washing away weaker linguistic structures.
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u/antialiasedpixel 1h ago
67 is the age you get full social security benefit amount. If you start taking it before 67, you get way less per month and it's locked at that number for the rest of your life(except for the small cost of living bumps they do each year).
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u/Sphezzle 4h ago
For people under 40, retirement in the UK might legally exist by the time we get there, but it will be a financial unreality for 90% of us. We will have to continue to earn money on top of a diminished, untrusted and bankrupt pension system (thanks, triple lock)
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u/JoJoAnd 4h ago
No you can stop working earlier if you save enough
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u/StormcloakWordsmith 4h ago
many people are not making enough to put away for retirement.
capitalism requires losers to have winners. welfare and social services are meant to help balance this, but..
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u/CheeseDonutCat 3h ago
There's a thing happening here in Ireland sometime in the new year where Irish people starting work get like 1.5% or something put away for pension purposes. It's because we're notoriously bad at saving for pensions and the idea is so people will be better off when they are old.
I'm already old and poor, so it's too late for me, but I hope it helps someone.
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u/charlesmortomeriii 3h ago
In Australia your employer is obliged to put away 12 per cent of your wage, and this is invested in your behalf. I have around half a million bucks stashed away without any real effort on my part (apart from showing up to work). It’s a decent system
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u/paddy_________hitler 2h ago
In America employers put away 6.2 percent, employees put away 6.2 percent, and the government uses it for something unrelated, gives you the finger, and moves on with its day.
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u/collie2024 3h ago
I wonder if it similar idea to what Australia did over 30 years ago. Started at 3%, now it’s 12% of gross earnings.
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u/carl3266 4h ago
And live longer if you choose a healthy diet and lifestyle.
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u/ScaredComment2321 3h ago
This can be very difficult to “choose” for a lot of people.
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u/scheppend 1h ago
How is it difficult to choose a healthy diet? Just choose lentils and an onion over sausage. Done.
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u/ScaredComment2321 1h ago
Have you considered that eating disorders are on the same level as other mental disorders? Do you ask depressed people, “How hard is it to just be happy and not sad?. Done.”
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u/scheppend 1h ago
Not having the willpower to not go for that 3rd burger isnt a disease lmao
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u/Calm-Tree-1369 2h ago
While you're not wrong for a lot of valid reasons, they could at least fucking try a little bit.
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u/CrazyShinobi 28m ago
American Dream was, find or start a good business. Work 20 years, retire. We had pension's, and the companies used to take care of their workers, now they just take care of themselves, and have passed the almost entirety of their cost, onto the consumer.
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u/5ofDecember 2h ago edited 2h ago
You don't have to. It's only that society give you some "free" money since that age. And by the way, it's an anomaly in human history that society supports you and not your family
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u/dyed_albino 4h ago
76 might be the average but that takes into account all the people that die really young. Once you make it past a certain age your life expectancy goes up.
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u/DB_Mitch 4h ago
Correct. I Remember reading this fact about ancient times life expectancy as well, so many died as infants and children it brought the average down, way the fuck down.
If you make it to adulthood, you had a great chance at dying old.
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u/Juan_Jimenez 3h ago
Not a 'great' chance (a lot of people died in their 50s), but definitely people didn't die in their 30s
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u/Pas__ 3h ago
all cause mortality was waaaay higher though
no antibiotics, violent crime rate was magnitudes higher, more people freezing to death, malnutrition was common, and then plagues, and then any kind of medical intervention was at best a 50-50 gamble, plus hospital acquired infections (due to lack of antiseptics, lack of general sterilization, lack of doctors washing their hands, and so on), no insulin, and with a bit of effort we can continue the list (armed conflicts! childbirth for moms!)
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u/Dizzy_Example5603 1h ago
How many people die due to their own lifestyle though. Men typically eat unhealthy, more so than women. No surprise women tend to live longer. Men have more heart attacks likely due to diet. People smoke which cause health issues, drink ect. Many people die young due to random luck or lifestyle. Life expectancy goes up significantly if you take these factors into account.
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u/Badestrand 3h ago
I think life expectancy at birth was around 35 so if half of children died before the age of 5 then the other half must have lived to 65-70 years, on average.
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u/Juan_Jimenez 3h ago
For the Romans: Of those still alive at age 10, half would die by the age of 50 (un Wiki, quoting Scheidel, "Demography". In Morris, Ian; Saller, Richard P.; Scheidel, Walter (eds.). The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–86, 2007).
The evidence from cemeteries show a lot of people dying in their 50s; there was lot of people in their 30s with their parents already dead and so on.
Of course it was not rare to get to your 60s or even the 70s -otherwise you can't have a Senate (and old men council). But adults died at higher rates than nowadays.
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u/Key-Demand-2569 2h ago
That doesn’t drive the average NEARLY (extra big double emphasis on that) as much today as it did with that historical statistic.
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u/jeffeb3 3h ago edited 1h ago
My dad was worried about that when he turned 70. He was planning for a few more years. I found the actual stats and the expectation for a 70yo male is average of 86. But he also is relatively healthy and lives in Colorado (which has higher than average expectancies).
Once you make it to 50, you have a much higher average life span. But you do need to take your health seriously.
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u/atsolstice 2h ago
Colorado ranks in top 3 for the fittest/healthiest US states overall, great place for physical activities in general
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u/Stock_Currency 3h ago
As morbid as it sounds, it basically means for every toddler that dies at the age of 3, you would need 5 people making it to 90 to get the average to 75.5.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit 3h ago
Not to mention that most adults don't count teenage life as life. Middle aged refers to the middle point of adulthood, not adolescence. If you live to 80, 50 is the halfway point from 20 to 80.
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u/Loonster 2h ago
Looking at mortality tables. The expected lifespan of a 50 yr old male is 80. So yes, 50 is the middle age of adults in multiple ways.
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u/LogicallySound_ 2h ago
Not really, infant mortality is so low it doesn’t really skew the data like it did in the 14th century.
Use the Actuarial Life Table and you can see that at 30 the expected age is 76, at 40 it’s 77. If you make it into old age you have higher probability to live longer into it but there significantly lower probability to get there in the first place.
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u/qtc0 2h ago
At least in Canada, if you make it to 50, your life expectancy is about 78-80 (depending on income level). Our retirement age is 65. If you make it to that point, you should have another 17-20 years.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310013401
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u/rinurinu 3h ago
Once you make it to 80, your life expectancy might be at least 80.
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u/Marrk 3h ago
Most people here are assuming they won't die young. Even if you take care of your health, there's no guarantee.
Many people have heart attacks with no prior symptoms. Many people get in accidents. Many get cancer even with a healthy lifestyle.
It isn't super improbable to not make it to 50, even taking care of yourself.
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u/Uncle_Richard98 3h ago
But you’re only looking at the exemptions. If you see these cases they seem a lot because it can be up to hundreds or thousands of cases but when you compare it with the rest of the population (millions and millions and millions of people) just a small percentage dies like that.
Nowadays in developed countries people die of very old age (around the 80s) and not because of heart attacks or accidents, which obviously occur everyday but is still a small percentage with the rest of the population. The only thing that is more common is die of cancer.
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u/Glockass 1h ago
A common stastic is life expectancy at 60 for this reason. One of the many indicators the WHO) looks at.
For example for men in the UK, average life expectancy at birth is 79 years old, but if you make to 60 years old, this increases to 86 years old. lil calculator here
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u/Independent_Lock864 3h ago
This. The stats mean nothing. If you don't do dumb shit or get unlucky, your life expectancy is quite decent.
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u/SamifromLegoland 4h ago
It’s because we consider that the clock starts with adulthood and not when we’re born. Which makes sense.
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u/Every-Inflation552 4h ago
And if we go by 18 as the start of adulthood and 76 being the average life expectancy, 47 would be middle aged. Pretty close.
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u/redlaWw 2h ago edited 1h ago
For my UK life table, I get the remaining life expectancy at 18 to be 63.55, so the total life expectancy of someone who lives to 18 is 81.55. (18+81.55)/2 = 49.77, which is pretty much 50 for all intents and purposes.
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u/Boltiten 3h ago
There is one problem. Life expectancy increases as we ages, so an infant has shorter life expectancy than someone 18 y.o.
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u/Every-Inflation552 3h ago
You’re adding variables.
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u/Boltiten 3h ago edited 2h ago
Its already adding variables by starting the clock at adulthood
When taking the life exp from birth, you take IDS and other mortality causes for children into accout. An adult never experience IDS, so their life exp will be higher. Its bad applied math to only increase the age of the person without updating the other variables that are affected by that.
Edit: spelling and some explination
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u/axemexa 4h ago
Makes no sense to me to start the clock at adulthood
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u/turdferguson3891 2h ago
Middle age doesn't really mean halfway between birth and death. It means middle adulthood. At 18 to 35 or so you're a young adult. 35 to 55 or so is middle age.
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u/GargantuanCake 4h ago
When they set the retirement age at 65 that was about the life expectancy at the time. Retirement is actually not the historical norm; people worked until they died just out of necessity. There aren't any tricks; the fact that retirement is even possible at all is a big deal.
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u/NoTurnip4844 3h ago
Im a financial advisor with a special focus on retirement income planning. It is really fascinating because we often have to plan for 30, 40, and sometimes even 50 years of retirement. We work less now than ever before.
If you save properly for 30-35 years your account balances can grow so high that you can not only live on interest, but the balances and your income from interest will continue to grow every year.
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u/Kirk-Joestar 2h ago
As a newly 30yr old guy, got any resources you can send my way to achieve this?
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u/jodon 1h ago
Don't do anything special. just put away as much as you can in a index fund for the next 30-40 years and it will be a lot by the time you get there. don't expect it to be much at the start, it takes time. If you can save as much as 15-20% of your income you will be very well of by retirement time, but if all you can do is 2-3% it is still good to start saving early as compounding interest and time is a real force when it comes to long term saving.
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u/NoTurnip4844 1h ago edited 1h ago
If you have a workplace 401k or a 401k equivalent such as a 403b or 457, I recommend saving 15% of your pay into it. Saving is a habit. If you start saving 15%, soon you'll adjust your lifestyle to the point where you won't miss it. 15% is generally the rule of thumb for retirement saving.
Edit: it's okay to start with something youre more comfortable with. Say 10%. But then you should increase the contribution by 1-2% each year until you reach 15%.
If you dont have a 401k available to you then I would recommend an Individual Retirmenet Account, or IRA. You can set one of these up with a financial institution such as Charles Schwab, JP Morgan Chase, or Edward Jones.
I highly recommend investing into a ROTH, or after-tax basis. We don't know what taxes will look like in the future, but ROTH accounts grow on a tax-free basis. When you withdraw the money in retirement, you have tax free income.
There are many other benefits to Roth accounts, as well as many nuances surrounding retirement accounts. If you have any more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
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u/SnooAvocados7188 1h ago
Hey, what’s the highest % income you’d recommend putting into retirement?
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u/NoTurnip4844 43m ago
The maximum you can contribute to a 401k in 2026 is $24,500.
The maximum you can contribute to an IRA is $7,500.
If you're over 50, those limits are even higher.
There's nothing wrong with maxing out both of these. The more you put away the more quickly you can retire or the more income you'll have in retirement.
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u/Raider_Jonesy 2h ago
Once you're at 2-3 million - which is fairly easy if you start investing in retirement when young - you'll probably have a very hard time burning through that pile.
My parents both take multiple international trips a year and do expensive household renovations - and their retirement accounts just go up.
You statistically spend dramatically less as you age, too.
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u/Aware_Policy7066 3h ago
It makes sense. A society isn’t healthy with too many people being nonproductive. I do hope it changes in the future.
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u/Regular_Error6441 4h ago
I reckon it's reverting back from the recent past where people could more easily buy homes and save modestly for a comfortable retirement. This "promised future" younger generations have been sold (if they just go to school, study, get a good stable job, etc) is based on an exceptional combination of factors working together to make such favourable situation possible for a brief time in history.
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u/teenagesadist 3h ago
WW2 made it possible for baby boomers to basically coast through life as long as they put in the barest amount of effort, on average.
And then complain to everyone how hard they had it.
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u/Livid-Noise-7445 4h ago
Middle age being 38 just ruined my whole day
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u/UnstableUnicorn666 4h ago
That is how middle age is calculated. It have always been middle of your adulthood so 76-20 = 56 / 2 = 28 = middle age is 48.
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u/HesitationAce 4h ago
As a 40 year old I’m very keen for more people to understand this! We have child hood and adult hood and both are sub divided further. Infancy, childhood, adolescence. Young adult hood, middle age, and old age!
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u/Serious-Effort4427 4h ago
Wtf is that math? I don't understand how you got there.
76+20=96/2=48
Middle age 48.
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u/Mike_2099 4h ago
Who's "they"?
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u/r0Lf 3h ago
Big Company
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u/mariller_ 2h ago
And 100 years ago prople worked until they died, and there was no retirement money
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u/BeABetterHumanBeing 1h ago
The actual answer is demographers and actuaries.
The poster's answer is probably "the man" or some other unspecified scapegoat for their disgruntlement.
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u/QCTeamkill 4h ago
In Canada it's 83 years life expectancy and middle age is 52
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u/Comfortable-Mouse404 4h ago
Its the same in most european countries. Americans are such suckers.
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u/afops 3h ago
Currently visiting Thailand. It’s really really poor compared to the US. If you look at how a average Thai person lives it’s really really basic. I think any American that sees that, then learns they have higher life expectancy than Americans would - and should - stop to think.
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u/imisstheyoop 3h ago
Maybe, but I am not sure that their conclusion is going to be what you think it is, or think that it should be.
I know that I for one would rather die slightly younger and not-poor than older and "really poor".
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u/bunkills 4h ago
My dad died at 50 so I guess I’m geriatric now…
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u/8Bit-Jon 4h ago
My day died at 62 and 10 months. By that metric I've got 16 years left at best and I'm tired now.
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u/NoTurnip4844 3h ago
Research shows that only about 7% of your longevity is associated with genetics. The rest is based on lifestyle. As long as you maintain a healthy lifestyle it doesnt really matter very much how old your parents lived.
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u/Life_Grade1900 3h ago
The first social security recipient got benefits for about a year and a half before she died. Thats how the system was designed to work.
This extended period of people living in leisure at the end of their lives isbthe aberration of human society, not the norm
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u/jennmuhlholland 4h ago
Tricked? By who? Is life. If we didn’t have work and modern society we would be hunters and gathers wondering where our next meal would be coming from constantly. What are you all expecting? Such entitled mindset.
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u/SnarftheRooster91 4h ago
I thought "over the hill" was 40. Never heard 50 being half way....
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u/Icy-Requirement81 4h ago
I’m 42 and can confirm you only feel “over the hill” if you’re inactive. Get active and you can feel like you’re 20 again.
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u/imisstheyoop 2h ago
While helpful, I don't think what you say is universal.
I am a couple of years younger than you, realitively active (weight lift 4 days/week with cardio a couple of days/week) and I have never felt my age more.
I was in much worse physical shape when I was 30, heck even at 20 or as a teenager, but decades add up in the end.
Age affects us all differently.
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u/CheeseDonutCat 3h ago
and look after your joints.
I'm 48 and I quite enjoy exercise, but I can't do it that often because my knee is falling apart.
Get those extra spongy running shoes.
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u/c_monies_ 4h ago
Yep. I'm 42 and when I get out of bed in the morning it doesn't feel as easy as 10 years ago! Personally love being "over the hill", I have an excuse for being grumpy!
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u/Setctrls4heartofsun 2h ago
Youre right-- never heard someone suggest that 50 is the start of middle age. Its 40 to 65. Thats why 40 tends to be a "big" birthday.
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u/South_Front_4589 4h ago
Childhood takes up almost the first 2 years.
Middle age is really the middle phase of being an adult. It's where you're far enough through to feel like it's a really big thing to make major changes, but far enough from the end that it's still possible to make those changes. It's where you tend to find yourself with any children you have likely becoming adults, and might be enjoying life as a grandparent whilst you're capable of being active. And in many ways, it might feel like the last chance to make any really major changes.
It's not literally the middle of your life, and they're not trying to trick anyone. It's describing a phase of your life where you're in the middle of a lot of things.
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u/HEIR_JORDAN 3h ago
Hasn’t that always been known…
That’s why people say 40 year old dads that go out and buy a red sports car and dying hair an unnatural black color is having a midlife crisis…
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u/GiftLongjumping1959 1h ago
What do you mean tricked? People have to work until they’re 67 years old because they didn’t save for retirement.
It’s not a trick. It’s poor planning.
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u/TheTopNacho 4h ago
Well, we could go back to a system with no social support and work until the day we die...
It's funny that all we focus on is how things can be better, and they can be better, but we lose track of how much worse things can be, and they have been worse.
Be thankful for where we are and stop complaining. If early retirement is so important to you, you should have dedicated yourself to a higher paying career.
Sorry for the uncomfortable truth.
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u/DesignatedDesc 3h ago
Always set to make things better where they could be. No progress can be made if we just stop because "yea, could be worse."
Imagine if no one fought for the weekends to be a thing because "yea but like, I dunno, we could be doing worse, at least I sleep a little bit sometimes."
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u/TheTopNacho 3h ago
Nobody is saying you need to work to 65. Think of that retirement age as the point to which if you failed to retire earlier the gov will try to help you out because life must hurt. Retirement at 65 is analogous to aspiring to reach the minimums and not excel. Aspire to do better, work to do better, and you may find yourself in early retirement because you worked deliberately for it.
Part of that is working for a higher salary, part of that saving/investing more, part of that is living less expensive and making the necessary decisions to do so, and part of that is staying healthy to reduce your healthcare burden as much as possible. Realistically you should be aiming for retirement around 50 anyway because there is a seriously good chance your health won't allow you to keep working in your later years so it's best to be prepared.
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u/SpaetzlemitKaese 4h ago
The pretense of this statement is that people should stop working at middle age. More precisely, the poster seems to think that people start working around 20 and should stop working with 38. The rest of their lifetime, they live off the wealth generated by the people 20-38.
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u/travellingtriffid 3h ago
Which is fine for a professional footballer, but ridiculous for 99% of the rest of us.
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u/HighArctic 3h ago
40ish has always been middle age hasn't it? That's when men buy their convertibles
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u/Federal_Fondant_3919 3h ago
Wife and I are in our early 40’s and sick of the 9-5 grind, our house won’t be paid off until we’re 70. We’re actively working to eliminate all debt. The only way we see the next half of our lives is off grid. We’re working toward buying a couple acres of land, building a small cabin, and trying to completely unplug from the rat race. Why keep working to make a billionaire more money while just scraping by!
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u/LochNessMonsterMunch 1h ago
Comfortable truth:
Middle age is the age range of the years halfway between young adulthood and old age. It's 50.
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4h ago
[deleted]
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u/CheeseDonutCat 3h ago
America.
Most of us in Europe are 81-84. Sweden I think is basically top or second top in Europe for life expecancy though. Stupid Sexy Swedes.
Here in Ireland, our life expectancy is 82-83, but we are particularly bad for heart disease and I think we are one of the fatter countries in Europe (help us).
Speaking of fat.. I bought a bunch of different flavour Bilar sweets online and I particularly like the liquorice wheel ones. Good job Sweden.
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u/kthejoker 3h ago
Armenia?
Here in the US it's just shy of 80. In large cities like New York and Chicago it's 82-83.
It's mostly a reflection of early childhood mortality.
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u/RhysticRhythm 4h ago
Don’t be fat, don’t smoke and do some cardio and you can likely beat that average life expectancy. Obviously accidents happen but it’s largely brought down by unhealthy lifestyles. You’re in the driver’s seat.
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u/HideousExpulsion 4h ago
I think you could argue that it's even younger than that. "Middle" doesn't refer to a single year in your life it refers to a timespan of many years.
Splitting your life into three thirds: beginning, middle and end, the middle section starts at 25/26.
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u/Shaskakmat 4h ago
I think middle age is talking a about adulthood, you are young adult at 18, middle age 35-50 and old after
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u/RooBoo77 4h ago
Idk why people think it’s the responsibility of society to take care of you when you wanna retire in your 50s. If you ain’t got the money, tough nuts dude, show up to work.
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u/Euphoric_Ad6923 4h ago
"Tricked"
Bruh, do you think retirement is free? Do you think money just grows on trees and once you declare you're retired the system doesn't suffer from your being a drain? There's already a massive issue in the West of older folks going into retirement unprepared and being heavily dependant on the government to pay for them to stay alive just so they can then die and be a drain on their families through stupidly expensive funerals.
You works until 60s because that's when the average person's body stops being able to do the work, that's it.
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u/BlankTigre 3h ago
You can retire whenever you’re able to. Economics typically means that’s not til about 60-65. It’s not a trick “they” did
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u/cervidal2 3h ago
The idea of getting to spend your last 20+ years of life not working are a modern pipe dream. This wasn't a norm or even a real goal for most of human history.
It's only recently that the idea of stopping work before you're infirm has been an expected aim.
Even then, it was still expected that the eldest generation did work in terms of child care.
Responsibility-free retirement has never been a societal expectation until the last half-century.
There is no 'trick'.
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u/Ok-Nefariousness-927 3h ago
That's why I'm trying to retire at 50.
People keep telling me that they'll be bored or some other bs reason that isn't money.
The fact is that people are saving for a lifetime for 11 years of retirement where half of those years are in declining health.
I'm planning on a long retirement. Well past 76. But if I don't make it, I'm not going to have regrets about not having a great retirement doing the things I want to do when I want to do it.
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u/Zestyclose_Paint3922 3h ago
Yeah, we should all live on the money growing on trees the day we become 38.
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u/musicCaster 3h ago
No one is tricked. You just keep working until you have enough to retire. Not sure who is tricking here.
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u/A-Capybara 3h ago
Middle age means middle of adulthood, so if the average person lives to their 70s then middle age happens in your 40s.
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u/GeeEmmInMN 3h ago
65, which soon turned to 67.
Retirement age for a 38 year old now is going to be 72. I'll be dead by then, but mark my words, it's true. Peasants must remain servile tax payers for as long as possible.
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u/SurrealLoneRanger 3h ago
It’s because they’re not counting the years you were as a child. The middle age between 18 - 76 is 47.
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u/TheFinestPotatoes 3h ago
You can retire earlier than that, you just need to spend less than you earn
Are you willing to do that?
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u/Amazing-Walk1529 2h ago
“Tricked a generation” seems a little off. For most of human history, there was no such thing as “retirement”. The 64 retirement age was a major win for the labor movement. Not saying it shouldn’t be protected or extended, but let’s not pretend the retirement age was some corporate conspiracy.
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u/GameBreaker92 2h ago
I’m tired of posts like this. Most people in human history have worked well into old age and up to their death. We have a system that keeps old people in a life of dignity and everyone thinks that it’s a scam.
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u/OneBillPhil 2h ago
I am late 30s and consider myself middle aged. Most my age have children and injuries that you get from not being young anymore.
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u/Otherwise-Map-8021 2h ago
They want us to work until we die. Have kids so they work until they die.
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u/Advanced_Handle_2309 1h ago
They tricked? Who? In my country even now it seems like pension system will collapse in like several dozen years because there will be not enought money for it
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u/Netii_1 1h ago
You guys can retire at 64?
I'm Gen Z and expecting to work until 70 at the very least and even then, what will be left of state funded pensions probably won't be enough to survive. So practically you'll be forced to work until you die unless you managed to save enough money to fund retirement yourself.
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u/TwinkieDad 1h ago
Generations tricked? Before the 20th century most people just worked until they died. Retiring at all is the new better thing. Want to push that earlier or at least not backslide? Great! Don’t pretend that retiring at 65 hasn’t been a groundbreaking thing for the vast majority of people.
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u/FuraidoChickem 1h ago
I don’t understand this dream of retiring and enjoying “retirement”. For most of human history, probably all of human history, 99% of people work until they drop dead.
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u/saudiaramcoshill 1h ago
It's not a trick. Social security was never meant to be a retirement pension. It's old age care. It was meant to take care of the elderly.
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u/Yourself013 7m ago
The actual uncomfortable truth:
Retirement was never about stopping to work "middle aged" and chilling for the rest of your life, travelling and enjoying your hobbies while being paid. It was about making sure that those who are too old to work can live out the rest of their days because they physically can't keep working anymore. Nobody tricked anyone, the human lives have always revolved around work until you can't, and at that point, you are supported by the rest of your community until you die.
This idea that so many people have, that retirement is some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow where you can enjoy years and years of chill life is a relatively new phenomenon. And the fact that we have so many old, retired people who keep living for 20, 30 years on retirement, expecting to keep getting more and more money, is exactly why the system is crumbling.
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u/Eyespop4866 3h ago
Middle aged isn’t the halfway point of your life, it’s the middle of your adult life.
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u/Gnordle 4h ago
damn at 42 im already past middle age? thanks for the existential crisis on boxing day bruh
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u/TawnyTeaTowel 4h ago
Middle age isn’t the middle of your life, it’s the middle of your adult life. The OP is clueless.
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u/Exact_Accident_2343 4h ago
“Middle age” doesn’t conventionally mean the middle of your lifespan. It’s half of your conscious life being remaining, I’d consider the first 10 years of your life not to be really conscious or in tune.
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u/Dramatic_Zebra_1069 3h ago
I'm 55 and I'm on the cusp of soft-retiring, mostly because I planned well financially. And at 38, I was in close to the best physical shape of my life - nowhere close to being "middle aged." Even at 55 I'm in good physical shape and can do most of the things I could do at age 30. (Can't really run anymore, but everything else is on the table)
Whoever came up with that above is a whining simp.
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