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By Mihar Dias May 2026
There is an old joke: when you are young, thirty seems old. At seventy, even a staircase looks dangerous.
Among my old classmates, now close to eighty, conversations have changed. We no longer argue about politics or football. We talk about balance, bad knees, blood pressure, and how to remember passwords.
That is the strange joke of aging. Just when you think you understand life, your body starts disagreeing.
People say the years from seventy to seventy-five can be the hardest. Not always because of big illness, but because little troubles arrive one by one.
A friend who once ran marathons now takes curbs carefully. Another who once managed companies is defeated by his phone. Some struggle more with QR codes than with old political crises.
There is comedy in that, but also truth.
Growing old today is not just about wrinkles. It is about living in a world that keeps changing faster than you can keep up. Men who once repaired engines now need grandchildren to fix Wi-Fi.
Progress, they call it.
But the harder part of aging is not sore joints. It is losing friends, feeling less needed, and sometimes eating dinner in silence.
That is the sadness we do not talk enough about.
Still, those now in their seventies and eighties may be better prepared than younger people think.
They grew up knowing thrift before financial advisers made it fashionable.
They walked daily before “fitness” was a trend.
They had communities before social media.
They repaired things instead of replacing them.
They knew how to be patient.
In short, they learned resilience before it became a motivational slogan.
That is why I am suspicious of all the modern advice on “successful aging.” Lift weights. Stay connected. Find purpose. Fine.
But perhaps the real rules are simpler:
Stay curious.
Keep laughing.
Accept help when needed.
Forgive your aging body.
And never stop learning.
There is another lesson too.
A society obsessed with youth often treats old people like broken machines.
But old people are not broken.
They are living archives — sometimes grumpy ones — but archives nonetheless.
They carry memory, perspective and hard-earned wisdom.
My classmates remind me of a few simple truths:
Walk every day.
Keep old friends.
Do not postpone joy.
Learn the smartphone.
Distrust anyone selling immortality.
And remember:
Slowing down is not the same as fading away.
The real danger after seventy is not age.
It is giving up.
Yes, the seventies can be difficult.
But so were adolescence, marriage, raising children, taxes — and surviving the 1970s the first time.
This generation survived shortages, upheavals, heartbreaks and disco.
Surely it can survive passwords.
Perhaps aging is simply life’s final test in adaptation.
And those who survived the seventies — the decade — may be especially qualified to survive the seventies — the age.
Though, admittedly, with larger fonts.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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