Asklemmy

Older people (30+)

LOLolol...

• Do not assume older people have anything at all figured out

After 60+ years I don't offer generic unsolicited advice any more (I learned that lesson) but if I were going to break that rule, I'd suggest you read books. Actually read them too, don't rely on audio books, and read as widely as you can. Sci-fi, mystery, romance, historical, non-fiction, just try to read a book a month. To lose yourself in a book is one of the great ways to maintain mental health.

Also, don't offer unsolicited advice.

Older people (30+)

Everyone needs to do exercise with resistance (weights, bands, bodyweight). You will not get too muscular by accident. It will prevent aches and pains, it will prevent injuries, it will make it more likely you survive car accidents and false.

Everyone needs to floss, there are no exceptions.

Everyone needs time outside in nature. If you live in a city, get to a park every week, preferably every day. It changes our brain chemistry. We aren't organized to live in boxes all day.

Learn how to breathe. If you think that sounds silly, you're the example.

Learn to cook. When you can't contribute anything else, being able to contribute food is universally accepted

I’m nearly 40 and the world they are facing is so different to what I experienced that I don’t know if any advice I could give would even make sense.

Don’t suffer fools, I guess. Life is too short to put up with people who don’t, won’t or can’t respect you. You don’t have to make it a big deal, in fact that might be the wrong move if you’re dealing with a narcissist. Instead become uninteresting when interacting with them. The Grey Rock technique.

Never stop learning.

Take excellent care of your teeth. Whatever you need to do to accomplish this, DO IT. It’s thousands and thousands of dollars later if you don’t. I can’t stress this enough.

Also, work in some strength training. Once your joints start to inflamed and hurt all the time, you will wish you had done this. I know because I do.

Your night vision will start to degrade after age 40 or so. Prepare yourself.

Sitting at a desk all day causes cumulative damage. Standing desks, yoga, little desk treadmills, ergo keyboards and mice: all these things may sound silly when your body can handle it. But the damage is CUMULATIVE. Do the “silly” things now, and slow the accumulation the hell down!

Life is hard and stressful whether you're kind or unkind, so be kind. I don't mean be a doormat, but don't be a dick.

Start exercise today. Younger folks gain strength and speed much easier than old people. Lack of physical capability kills the elderly, so the more strength and stamina you start with and work to maintain, the longer you will be mobile.

Do cardio and strength exercises. Endurance should be at least 80% of your cardio, that means slow. Brisk walks or slow jogs. For strength training focus on big hinge movements like squats. Start out small, body weight exercises, and go from there. Get some time with a trainer to check your form.

Wear the fucking retainer after braces come off.

Start exercising. Now. Doesn't matter how old you are. Find the time. Doesn't have to be a full blown gym habit, just consistent, makes-you-sweat exercise. It will never be easier to get in the habit.

If you work with tools or equipment in any fashion, use proper personal protective equipment and don't skip it.

If you work around loud noises, use real hearing protection. Hearing loss is irreversible and cumulative.

If you work with anything that makes dust or fumes, get a resparator. You can get nasty allergies from sawdust, griding dust gives you lung cancer and a bunch of other horrible shit.

If you work with chemicals, use gloves or whatever is required per the sds.

Always wear eye protection, you can't get new eyes.

Take care of your skin, if you weld, wear real covers. Skin cancer on welders is a real thing.

Use gloves where safe, and don't where you are using rotating equipment, degloving is a thing. Equipment can't tell the difference between flesh and workpieces and it doesn't care.

30+ here. Drink more water, wear sunscreen, take photos of your friends, and don’t marry someone just because the Wi-Fi is shared

Never stop learning and get educated. Take responsibility for yourself, your health, your finances. Don’t do drugs.

Younger generations? Find your fucking way out of wild capitalism. You deserve to have a home, free time and mental health.

Watch your health. Most of my friends have just accepted that they get fat when they get older. Just don't

Cut out social media from your life completely. No, I swear to god, this is life changing advice not some boomer platitudes about how kids these days are always in their phones.

You don't realize how much life you are missing by being completely stuck to your phone. I promise the world will continue to turn if you ignore your phone for a few hours at a time.

Quit Facebook, quit Instagram, quit X, quit TikTok. If you feel like you are bored and want to open the apps, try something else. Read a book, start a creative writing project, listen to music while meditating, play video games, do some woodworking, go for a walk or a hike with your dog, learn a new language, go out to the bar or club and socialize, go to the gym and work out, draw stuff from your imagination.

I promise promise promise you will feel better. Not right away, but very soon after you start doing these things instead of the vapid doomscrolling, shitposting, clout-chasing, self-aggrandizing social media spiral you will realize that you don't need your phone. You are able to live your best life when you aren't thinking about what's being posted online or taking constant selfies or photographing every meal you eat.

Your future self will thank me.

Take care of your teeth!! I get it can be hard to do so if you're depressed cause I've been there. I've lost a couple molars cause of it. It's expensive and sucks. At least try your best to do it once a week if you struggle.

Try to understand yourself better. Notice when you have strong emotions and question why. Revisit the same situation from different angles and try to understand what happened. Why did this make you angry, why did that make you feel ashamed.

Also don't spend your life arguing online. It's easy to get caught up in winning an argument. But it's a waste of your time.

I've spent my whole adulthood working in hospitals. They're shitholes, every single last one of them. Do every single thing you can to never be in one.

Drink water, plain water. Eat whole grains and leafy vegetables. Treat red meat like a dessert (and if you're morally opposed to meat, make sure you're still getting all your essential proteins). Find a physical activity you enjoy and do it at least three times a week. Either join an organized religion or specifically curate a group of people you do a weekly activity with who will come check on you if you suddenly stop showing up. And while you're at it pick a mindfulness activity that you either enjoy or that brings you peace (prayer qualifies but so can yoga or a lot of other things). Avoid nicotine and alcohol at all costs. Go easy on the weed, and avoid anything more interesting without guidance from either a medical professional or some kind of traditional expert on those substances. And if a competent doctor listens to your specific situation and tells you to do or not do something I've mentioned, listen to them instead of me.

Decide who you would want to speak for you on your death or near-deathbed. Choose people both trustworthy and level-headed who will put your wishes over their own emotions. Choose multiple people, because it's not unlikely that any one person will be in the car wreck with you. Talk to those people about what you want to happen or not happen so they can best carry out your wishes. Sign some kind of legally binding paperwork that cements them as the decision maker, especially if your first choice is not the default the state would choose (parent, spouse, sibling, adult child, etc). You can write whatever you want then to do on the paper, but the chosen person will have the right to override it if they think you would want them to. So sign the paper but don't forget to TALK to them about it.

And good luck because while this will give you the best odds, the universe might also just decide to fuck you in particular anyway.

Don’t waste your time on stuff. Waste it on experiences and spending time with people. Relationships are the most important thing. You won’t regret that and it will make your life richer and more fulfilled. Stuff won’t do that.

My marriage is approaching 30 years now.

A lot of this goes without saying or as some would say common sense. Only there is no common sense as it is too subjective of a term. Look at me, I am already digressing and I haven't even started.

Everything you know about life and love will change in your lifetime. Everything you have learned is a half truth. You sometimes find happiness when you can find the whole truth for yourself. This often means you may end up in conflict with culture, society, or even family. This is normal.

If you love and care about yourself, you can truly love and care about someone else. Although there may be sacrifice in relationships, the factor that makes them work is how you build each other up. A marriage or any partnership should always be about helping each other achieve more.

Be grateful for your life and everything you have and everyone you know everyday. Say it out loud, tell it to the people in your family, in your friendships, in your workplace, and most importantly in your close relationships.

Not only is it important to say it, it is important to show it through your actions. A common trope is actions are louder than words. Both are actually important, although I do have a preference for people showing it because it validates what they say.

Treat people how they want to be treated. This blows the golden rule out of the water. Don't know how they want to be treated? This is normal. You ask them. Asking someone how they want to be treated and treating them that way is the surest way to gain respect.

Unless you save you are not paying yourself anything. If you spend everything you make you are literally stealing from your future. Always save everything you can and invest it if you want it to grow. Think twice about purchases, especially if they are major. Being a little thrifty in life is way better than living paycheck to paycheck.

Best advice, dont break 2 laws at once. If you are going to drink alcohol underage, dont drive. If you are going to smoke weed, dont do it while you are trespassing somewhere etc etc.

I take offence at 30 being old 😅

If you're romantically interested in someone, say "hey, I'm romantically interested in you".

Do not have a "crush", do not have a friend you're secretly in love with, do not secretly pine for anyone. It is not interesting, it does not make you stronger, you are not the protagonist in a romance novel, and you are dumb if you want to try to "save our friendship".

If the other person is not interested, say "Thank you for your honesty. It's been nice knowing you" and move on with your life. Stop wasting time. Life is too short.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't waste precious time on imaginary scenarios.

If you want kids there's a few things to consider.

1. Graduate highschool then get married before kids.
2. Kids are physically easier when you're younger.
3. No one is ever really ready for kids, but you should have some level of financial stability and be prepared to have significantly less freedom.

Be purposeful in what you spend money on. You don't need the best of everything, especially when starting a new hobby. You can find someone spending absurd amounts on anything, but no one can do that on everything.

Don't compare yourself to others, compare yourself to your own past performance.

My best advice? Stop considering 30 to be old.

Don't chase after women and buses.

Put effort into finding someone as a romantic / life long partner while you're young. Be critical and aggressive in the search (ie. don't just "be open and let things happen if they happen!").

Most of the systems and life goals of society are tied to having two people or more in the family unit. Ideally aim for a partner that has similar economic outcomes as yourself, or at least positive ones overall, and who's personality is tolerable / you can see yourselves staying friends indefinitely. If you're a reclusive sort, find someone else who also values their space but is still willing to comingle finances/lives. Doing this young is important as there are more options and it'll generally be easier to find people that 'fit' with your lifestyle. Finding someone close to you in age also helps to keep your life-events (such as whether to have kids, when to retire, etc) better aligned.

Everything from paying off mortgage debt, to income tax breaks, to even just having a secondary "fail safe" income stream from your partner, are really significant. Heck, with the right partner you even cut down the costs of things like Groceries (can buy in bulk = savings), chore-times, etc.

The younger you get that leverage, the better the results later on. Consider something like the time crunch many adults feel, between work, chores, sleeping, etc. If you have a solid partner, you can do something like alternate chores and workouts, so that you both maintain better overall health as you age. Eg. one partner does a workout while the other buys groceries/cooks, then the first partner does the cleanup and some light cleaning around the house while the other hits the gym. Having that sort of balance in your 20s / early 30s, will give you a better chance of maintaining your health into your 40s and 50s. There're good reasons why single people die younger.

Not bad although the way things are I would say don't have kids unless your wealth can support it. Also the more you save the less you will need to know your stuff down to the penny. Personally I would say be careful about getting into an investor mindset which can lead you to things that are more like gambling and realize often times its about not losing money.

Advice that older people give you is just them looking at their own regrets. You may not have the same ones, so take it with a grain of salt. You have your one life to live so do whatever you want.

Get off here. It's documented mental illness at this point. I come from the beforetimes. When I was a teenager, a/s/l was redundant because the BBS was a local call, and if you wanted to see what someone looked like they had to own a scanner, which was rare and expensive. It was liberating to be able to talk to people and make friends without the superficiality of irl interactions.

Modern internet is profit-motivated and monetization is driven by engagement. It takes time and effort to curate your experience to squelch what the platform wants to show you, which is content you're most likely to engage with at the time you're most likely to engage with it. You're not talking to your friends anymore. It's an isolating experience.

The next time you're talking to someone or replying to a post, looking for your gotcha mic-drop moment, consider why you came here in the first place. Are you here deliberately, or are you just using the internet service that came with your smartphone? Go out into the world instead. Constant rage is unhealthy. Voting, community moderation, logins, persistent identity, and profiles have made the internet experience way more image-obsessed than the irl experience ever was. Your discourse is being streamlined, not encouraged and diversified.

tl;dr: go find your tribe, your real tribe.

Remember that any advice from your parents (or anyone over 30, apparently) is, at best, 20 years past its best by date. Doesn't mean it's not still good, but give it a sniff test.

Drink water... seriously. Make tea if needed. No sodas.

Invest heavily in a good mattress, you spend 1/3 of your life on it.

Try and make something. Woodworking, painting, music, anything that makes you feel happy.

Find 2 or 3 good friends and keep them for life.

Stay away from religions and cults.

(optional) get a dog. Man and dog evolved together, we need each other.