Besides retirement, is there anything to look forward to in middle and old age?

Golf

Fishing

I get what you are saying, but there's a fine line between "contentment" and "stale/boring/set in your ways/scared of new ideas and new places".

If you have the money travel, then do it. Go out and see everything you can. Don't sit in your house "content" to only concern yourself with the minutiae of your tiny spot on the globe.

New places, new people, new cultures, new ideas all help the aging process, not hinder it. What you described is just a terribly small world. The world is big- experience it.

I'm 65 and really can't think of anything specific for you to look forward to. You kind of need to find your own version of things to enjoy or to come to terms with not having them. But you'll change over time. The things you're interested in now and the things you'll be interested in two or three decades from now will not necessarily be the same. Maybe, for example, when you've been away from competitive running long enough you'll get interested in being the best 50-54 age group runner in your area or beyond. Or maybe not. And at your age I had no idea I'd ever have kids.

It actually seems like this is more of an issue for you to address now. Your interest in racing has faded, the activities you've replaced it with aren't as satisfying, your friends are moving into different phases of life, etc. Anyway, retirement has a lot going for it and you know, it's not guaranteed you'll make it to middle or old age.

I'm 35 and started running 3 years ago, so I'm still in the PR phase of my running which is pretty sweet. I also have a wife and a second kid on the way. You should reconsider your lack of interest, they very much add a ton of meaning to life. My wife speaks German so I'm learning German so I can raise my kids bilingually. I have an app idea but no time to implement it. I have so much stuff going on. Life isn't over. Get out of your comfort zone. Figure out new and interesting things to do/learn and go do it!

oh and travel is so ridiculously overrated and it's nothing more than a shallow escape for stale people set in their ways. it won't help you. the exception here is if you go and actually live in a new place in a new culture, but that's not really travelling anymore.

and retirement isn't something to look forward to if you have nothing to fill the time with.

maffeboner wrote:

and retirement isn't something to look forward to if you have nothing to fill the time with.

I love having nothing to fill the time with.

Younger poon

maffeboner wrote:

oh and travel is so ridiculously overrated and it's nothing more than a shallow escape for stale people set in their ways. it won't help you. the exception here is if you go and actually live in a new place in a new culture, but that's not really travelling anymore.

What type of travel? I agree that lots of types can be a shallow escape. But high quality travel, living in places for at least a month at a time can be one of the best things to strive for. Or travel for exploring nature and tying in artistic aspirations like photography or writing.

HRE wrote:

maffeboner wrote:

and retirement isn't something to look forward to if you have nothing to fill the time with.

I love having nothing to fill the time with.

I dunno, I've read a lot of horror stories from people in the FIRE community (financial independence, retire early) and from their experiences it seems that having nothing to do gets old really fast. They sleep in late, veg out, feel useless, and ultimately become lonely and depressed.

Well, regardless of how the rest of your life eventually goes, you can be guaranteed that when you are older you WILL wish for younger days. I don't know one single person over the age of 60 , no matter how well off and well adjusted they may be, who don't reflect that sentiment. So my advice is for you to not fritter away today worrying about 30 yrs from now. Try to

maffeboner wrote:

HRE wrote:

I love having nothing to fill the time with.

I dunno, I've read a lot of horror stories from people in the FIRE community (financial independence, retire early) and from their experiences it seems that having nothing to do gets old really fast. They sleep in late, veg out, feel useless, and ultimately become lonely and depressed.

Different people have different experiences. I love sleeping late, veging out, and I've always suspected we're all kind of useless anyway even when we were working. And I have really, really, low social needs.

At 33, you can take a lot of time of your marathon unless you really hit it hard running marathons in your 20s. If you are giving up on running marathons because you think you are too old, don't. You are not too old and have at least 6-7 good years of hard marathon training left in your legs.

Otherwise, the things you have to look forward at middle age are things like failing eyesight, not being able to sleep well after drinking a lot of booze, new music, movies, TV shows are rarely interesting and seem mostly to be derivative, women who you might want to date have kids and the ones that don't are damaged goods, spending hours at the gym but you still have a gut, feeling really old when you go to a concert filled with 20somethings, feeling reeeeeeaaaalllllyyy old when you go to a concert filled with 40-50somethings, and wine tastings. Lots and lots of wine tastings. Wine tastings at restaurants. Wine tastings at parties. Wine tastings at vineyards. Wine tastings at outdoor festivals. Wine tastings at wine bars. Wine tastings at wine tastings. Then, there will be a flight of bourbon and a Mazda Miata.

In all seriousness, middle age brings patience, endurance and wisdom from experience that will let you do things that you could not do in your 20s and 30s. Starting a business, moving up to management, or being involved in a non-profit are the sort of things that you cannot do as well in your 20s and 30s that you can do in middle age to keep yourself running out the door in the morning. Having lots of friends who socialize regularly is also critical. And try to learn as many new things in your 30s as you can. You never know what you will find interesting in your 40s and 50s. But it is exponentially more difficult to learn something from scratch later in life. I skied a lot in HS. I did not get back on skis until my early 40s. After a few days of wabbling around, I got my skis back under me and was able to really improve my technique and hit terrain I would not have been able to handle that well as a kid. then, I tried to learn how to snow board with my son. It was horrible.

Sure there is. If Mother Nature calls, it’s not required that you actually make it to the crapper in time.

The typical answer would be kids, and seing your kids grow up, and grand children etc. If you don't want none of that (def not to late to change your mind) then there is defitively some space to fill.

You also make some solid points about the fact that most experiences there are to be had, if they've not grown stale by now, then they definitively will because you have alot of time for experiences. And at old age competetive sport is def a no go imo.

I can think of 3 ways of living life that seem to make people happy past 40 without kids. The first is being a workaholic. The second is living the celebrity life, being a rockstar or something. The third is all about spirituality.

Since work doesn't seem to naturaly interest you I would recomend the path of spirituality. If you feel that you have experienced all that the material world has to offer then maybe it's time to look into the spiritual world.

High speed internet, strip clubs, and Viagra!

Coaching

Go jump out of an airplane. Worked for me.

Grace. Wisdom. Humility. Contentment. etc. These are the pearls of old age.