For me, I feel like many of the thrills that I experienced in my 20s are mostly gone. It gets old after you've had your thousandth expensive cocktail or your hundredth wrecked morning from going to bed at 4am.
I still very much enjoy those things, don't get me wrong; it's just not as OMG as it was in my 20s.
There's also the money factor. Much of my 20s was spent doing more with less. Exchange/Zimbra servers with PCs people threw away. Fighting with kexts at 3am so that I could get Wi-Fi working on OS X Tiger on my old Windows laptop. Waiting 30 minutes for the off-peak N train at 01:00 after drinking too much. That sort of thing.
I can afford comfort now. I pay for Fastmail. I have all of the Apple kit. When I'm doing something late at night in NYC, I take an Uber. That's been the best part of getting old for me.
Despite all of this, I think you're only as old as you feel. Example. This dude entered my powerlifting gym the other day. He was easily in his 80s. He asked me when the next powerlifting meet was.
I didn't know and couldn't help him, but I definitely knew that he is what I want to be when I grow up.
(An aside. One thing I'm really glad I learned recently is how to enjoy pacing drinks.
It takes me an hour to drink a good old fashioned, or even a shot of whiskey with some ice. A heavy bourbon barrel aged stout is an actual two hour session for me.
I was forced into doing this because of GERD, which is more under control now, but being able to really enjoy my drinks without getting drunk or destroying my sleep quality is a great acquired benefit.
Another benefit from doing this is realizing that staying out late is ONLY possible if you're going to drink a lot.
It's harder to drink a lot when you drink slowly, so you ultimately become the "old guy" that ducks at 20:00.
Given that I've done so many late nights out, I'm okay with that trade-off!)
I still very much enjoy those things, don't get me wrong; it's just not as OMG as it was in my 20s.
There's also the money factor. Much of my 20s was spent doing more with less. Exchange/Zimbra servers with PCs people threw away. Fighting with kexts at 3am so that I could get Wi-Fi working on OS X Tiger on my old Windows laptop. Waiting 30 minutes for the off-peak N train at 01:00 after drinking too much. That sort of thing.
I can afford comfort now. I pay for Fastmail. I have all of the Apple kit. When I'm doing something late at night in NYC, I take an Uber. That's been the best part of getting old for me.
Despite all of this, I think you're only as old as you feel. Example. This dude entered my powerlifting gym the other day. He was easily in his 80s. He asked me when the next powerlifting meet was.
I didn't know and couldn't help him, but I definitely knew that he is what I want to be when I grow up.
(An aside. One thing I'm really glad I learned recently is how to enjoy pacing drinks.
It takes me an hour to drink a good old fashioned, or even a shot of whiskey with some ice. A heavy bourbon barrel aged stout is an actual two hour session for me.
I was forced into doing this because of GERD, which is more under control now, but being able to really enjoy my drinks without getting drunk or destroying my sleep quality is a great acquired benefit.
Another benefit from doing this is realizing that staying out late is ONLY possible if you're going to drink a lot.
It's harder to drink a lot when you drink slowly, so you ultimately become the "old guy" that ducks at 20:00.
Given that I've done so many late nights out, I'm okay with that trade-off!)