What do you think gets better with age?

First, let’s talk about what gets worse.

Physical strength definitely fades away little by little. I used to be able to stay up late and still push through, but now if I stay up late even once, my whole day feels like my brain is stuffed with cotton.

My reactions have slowed down too. When someone finishes speaking, I need a couple more seconds to catch up; before, it felt like I was jumping, now it’s more like walking.

Sometimes, even my thinking feels like broken gears — my brain wants to turn, but just can’t.

Not to mention the unavoidable fact: as we get older, we get a little closer to the finish line.

But I read a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman says the brain operates in two ways: one is fast, intuitive “fast thinking,” and the other is cautious, effortful “slow thinking.”

When I was young, I almost always lived by “fast thinking.” I would just act first and think later, reacting on intuition and making quick decisions.

Sometimes it was efficient, sometimes I fell hard — though I rarely admitted it. Back then, I thought fast was good and slow was useless.

But in recent years, as my physical strength waned and my mind dulled, I’ve had to slow down.

Not because I became smarter, but because I can no longer go fast. At first, I was a bit reluctant, but gradually I realized: some things really require slowing down to see clearly.

For example, the unspoken meanings in conversations;

for example, what a decision truly means to me;

for example, some patterns I kept repeating in the past were just things I hadn’t noticed.

These things weren’t impossible to understand when I was young — I just didn’t have the energy or time to face them. Now, it’s mostly not that I’m wiser, but that I have no choice but to face them honestly.

To be honest, slowing down isn’t necessarily a good thing. It’s not romantic or free — it makes me start calculating how much time I have left, paying attention to small health issues, and thinking about which relationships are worth the effort.

But because I slow down, I can endure anger better, am less easily fooled by appearances, and am more willing to admit “I’m actually not sure.”

Maybe that’s enough.

I won’t say this is some beautiful personal growth, but amid all the decline, finding a few things that get better is a kind of arrival.

Some things get worse with age — that’s undeniable.

But some things can only be gained through time. Not stronger, but more honest, more effortless, more truly myself.

If this counts as getting better, then I’m willing to accept this way of aging.

Getting old is not evolution — it’s slowly letting go of things that have been held on too long.