“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you’re a Baby Boomer, you know all about the ebb and flow of self-confidence.

You may consider yourself “extremely” confident on matters of financial achievement, but on a more personal note, find yourself less than enthused.

It’s all about how it balances out in the end, and believe me, we’re all running the numbers.

So what do men fear most about aging?

1] It’s been my personal experience that most of us fear being old and broke. Not Old. But old and broke. There’s a difference.

My advice to all young guys is to choose your careers wisely, because there will come a day when windfall will become necessary in order to live out your years in comfort, rather than under a bridge.

2] Irrelevance. Yea, irrelevance. And no, not everyone is relevant in their own minds, families notwithstanding.

Men are used to being useful, and when they are no longer working, they die one way or the other.

3] Balding, followed by greying. I know I know. It’s superficial, and besides lots of men shave their heads.

But balding remains on the very top of men’s concerns next to colon cancer.

There are many less than stellar work arounds for this problem, but no matter what you do, the emotional damage is indelible and life-changing.

Some men are blessed with perfect hair. They are the very, very fortunate few…like movie stars who made it to the top without the right last names.

Adding insult to injury, men with perfect hair don’t have to be the most handsome, or in possession of flawless physiques.

This is because the preternatural nature of their everlasting hairlines more than balances the scales.

There is no upside to hair loss unless you have a perfectly shaped “boxy-muscular” head like Jason Statham, which arguably enhances his appearance.

So there is an upside for Jason Statham.

4] The ubiquitous Potbelly, in my view, is far worse than any hairline recession, because a man can actually do something about it without a surgeon or wig manufacturer.

If you can afford to just not give a crap what people think, and live your life in the back woods of Tennessee, fine.

If not, you’ll be the punchline of every joke about aging men.

5] Impotence. When your penis ceases to perform, no amount of money [or hair] in the world will make you feel like a man.

Fortunately for older men, there are ED meds.

Lots of them.

6] Death. Men don’t necessarily fear what happens to them after they die as much as they do what happens to those they leave behind.

This is an irrational thought process, but I actually know men who wonder whether or not their wives are going to start sleeping with the neighbor the second the funeral ends.

Summary

We’re all screwed eventually.

The best we can do is plan ahead financially, work until the day we die, go to therapy to overcome issues with balding [since nobody cares if #1 is in proper order], workout like we did in college, take ED meds when necessary, and come to terms with the fact

that life goes on after we die.

Now you have something to live for.