Âé¶¹´«Ã½

Letter: Why we feel too old after three score and 10 years

Published 10 September 2025

From Kate Brown, Canterbury, New Zealand

Your look at ageing was another great article from Graham Lawton. Interesting and informative with a good dose of optimism(16 August, p 28).

There is an aspect of ageing that isn’t generally addressed. I have witnessed a number of my female relatives age, becoming “too old” by their own reckoning. I have also listened to many patients say the same during my work in hospitals. Now, at 69, I share their perspective. This is despite being in excellent health, physically fit, mentally alert and having a great quality of life. I am objectively one of the luckiest of the luckiest generation.

Put bluntly, one just becomes tired. Tired of the endless rounds of life. Tired of coping with the small, unavoidable niggles of getting older. Overwhelmingly, one becomes tired of impotently watching the suffering caused by the folly of humanity.

Issue no. 3560 published 13 September 2025

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