Age 60 vs Age 40 - What's The Difference?

I’ve been asked this question so many times, especially by people who dread ageing, and worry constantly about it. My answer tends to be that there are key differences between the two stages, but not the fearful ones that they might imagine.

The biggest difference between being 40 and 60 years old is the acute awareness of life in the 40s, especially people in the first two years of the decade. Being 40 is often quite hellish: a time when many men review their situation, what they have achieved, for example, and feel very unhappy about the reality of their life not having turned out the way they expected. This realisation can be a very stressful and testing time for them, often leading to some depression and regret, as they experience a ‘midlife crisis’.

For many men, things are likely to feel hopeless, and past actions are questionable. Achievement seems to have come at a huge price, and the value of that person’s direction in life becomes subject to negative examination. Worst of all, many men might have lost a lot in the process of achieving their goals, and that is the hardest thing for them to accept. They do not feel anything like they imagined, and the word ‘success’ is tinged with too much sadness and regret.

In fact, the early 40s is usually a period of significant turmoil, as it tends to lead to a complete reassessment of the person’s initial lifestyle. Men are likely to ask themselves a barrage of questions like, “Who am I?”, “What have I accomplished, and does it really make me happy?” “Is it all worth it?” “What about a simple, more self-sufficient lifestyle in the country?”

These questions will be endless as some people search for new meaning to their existence. This is because too many men, in particular, go through life chasing personal dreams that consume every waking day of their existence. They even sacrifice relationships and people to achieve those desired objectives. Many finally reach their anticipated destination, especially in their jobs and fortunes, but find that life is no different at that point. Life feels, perhaps, even harder than before because of their increasing responsibilities and commitments.

This intense self-scrutiny happens to millions of people every year who would have focused on their own development and growth to the exclusion of all else. In addition, conscious of their changing bodies and flagging libidos, through overwork and advancing years, men will also be concerned with questions like, “How long do I have to live?” and “Am I still the catch of the year?”

But despite their unsettling air, the late 30s to mid 40s signify a sort of halfway point in an individual’s work career, a period of consolidation; a time to build a timetable for the future and fulfilling a sense of mastery and competence, often with considerable angst. That’s why many people tend to rethink their provisional decisions at this staging post and will either maintain them, or change them, to facilitate more permanent choices.

The Female Perspective

Most women also experience a midlife re-evaluation at this time as they rethink their lifestyles, relationships, careers, children and beliefs. They do ask the same questions as men, and are likely to be more preoccupied with their perceived notion of rapidly decreasing personal attraction: that is getting older, and their looks changing for the worse. But they are less worried about the time they have left on earth. For most women, the biggest preoccupation now is to have children before it is too late. This concern is often so pronounced, and even perceived as desperate, that when faced with the notion of such responsibility at the most introspective and insecure time of their life, many men tend to beat a hasty retreat in response.

Strangely enough, this is also the age women start to become really confident in themselves, much more than men. Reaching their mid-fifties, they’re at the peak of their confidence. Additionally, for a mother, by the time she crosses her 40th birthday, her children could begin to flee the nest.

In fact this stage is marked by two extremes: great productivity and equally great anxiety. If the first stage of all adult life relates to being an apprentice, acquiring new knowledge and status, and the second stage is to be confirmed and validated by our activities and the significant others around us, this third stage can be described as the adventurous one, with a focus on challenge and discovery.

Altogether being 38 to 45 can be an exciting time, if things are working well, but it is likely to be a period of angst and reflection; the beginning of a new dawn for all genders, though not necessarily going in the same direction.

The Over 60 Perspective

At age 60 years, life can be entirely different. No longer considered ‘old age’, people in their 60s are nothing like the stereotype of decrepit, senile old codgers. Instead they are healthy, often well educated, well funded and the major consumers of leisure in our society. Not quite in the labour force, they may become politically active and community oriented. Excluded dreams might re-emerge now: just like the retiring corporate executive who decides to take up the guitar because he had always wanted to play it, and had not found the time to do so before. Now he has that time and is raring to use it.

This also tends to be the adviser stage. Individuals at this age tend to play a key role in shaping the future of organisations and their community by sponsoring or mentoring promising people, projects, and ideas. The spirit of accomplishment, after completion of the midlife transition, can be one of the most productive of all adult stages. We are at the peak of our mature abilities here.

If the midlife issues have been acknowledged, addressed and resolved, we can now make our greatest possible contributions to others and society. We can now be less driven, less ego centred, less compelled to compete with others, and to impress them instead. We can focus on what really matters to us, on developing younger people, on communion with others, or on leaving some personal legacy that makes things better for others or the environment.

It is also time for settling into more realistic and rewarding relationships based on recognising our partners’ imperfections and helping them to grow. This is what age, experience and success often do: make the individual far more confident, fearless and proficient. Relationships also tend to benefit from this karma phase because the ones that reach this stage are likely to last until death. With work, children and personal angst out of the way, many couples can now focus completely on each other, with grandchildren adding that extra spice, where possible. Most noticeable of all, there’s also an active disengagement from group norms, and/or cultural pressures, in order to reevaluate and restructure personal priorities.

So being over 60 is often an amazing time of life that does not conform to the fearful stereotype of ill, unhappy and incompetent people; the ones that those who dread aging like to imagine, though they are, of course, exceptions to any rule. In fact for most people of this age, it is as if, without the need to impress anymore, the spirit gives a licence to ignore the demands of others and to behave differently; to behave disgracefully, as the saying goes, according to their own needs and aspirations.

In short, they can now be themselves with pride, and take more liberties in life, as the need to impress others, to be guided by them, and the constant competition, are no longer valued or important.