Think Young. Plan Old.

A friend recently told me, half-laughing, “I’m 62, but I feel about 45.” He wasn’t exaggerating. He’s active nearly every day, keeps up with his kids’ Spotify playlists, and just launched a new business. By most outward measures, he’s vibrant.

But when I asked whether he had thought about how is housing will fit his future needs, including the importance of having proximity to quality medical care, the conversation slowed.

This is the paradox of aging well: the better you feel, the easier it is to forget how old you actually are.

What my friend is describing is not unusual. In fact, it is nearly universal. After about age 25, something subtle happens: we begin to feel younger than we are.

The Older You Get, The Younger You Are?

Researchers call this subjective age. And the pattern is surprisingly consistent. Adults over 40 tend to report feeling roughly 20% younger than their chronological age. A 50-year-old feels 40. An 80-year-old often feels closer to 60.

What’s more interesting is not just that a gap exists, but how it behaves. Chronological age moves in a straight line—one year per year. Our internal clock does not. Studies from the Berlin Aging Study and MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) suggest that subjective time slows as we age. Some researchers describe an “attractor age,” often in the early-to-mid 40s, where many people mentally anchor and simply stop aging past.

Part of this is self-protection. As we age, we absorb negative stereotypes about frailty, decline, and irrelevance. To preserve agency and dignity, we subtly distance ourselves: I’m not one of those old people. It’s a psychological maneuver that keeps us engaged.

Is 80 the new 60?

And to be fair, there is truth embedded in the optimism. Seventy is not what it used to be. Longitudinal research from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology found that 70-year-olds in the 2000s walked with gait speed and grip strength comparable to 60-year-olds just a decade earlier. Similar improvements have been documented in Northern Europe. Measures of “intrinsic capacity”—a composite of mobility, cognition, and sensory health—are higher for today’s older adults than for prior generations.

Even more compelling: feeling younger appears to be good for you. Research led by Becca Levy at Yale found that individuals with positive self-perceptions of aging lived, on average, 7.5 years longer than those with negative views. Subjective youthfulness correlates with lower inflammation, stronger cardiovascular outcomes, and resilience under stress. When older adults are primed with negative stereotypes about aging, their memory performance and even balance measurably worsen. Feeling younger is not denial; it is often protective.

So far, so good.

Best to Plan with Real Age in Mind

But here is the catch.

If you think you are 45 when you are 62, you may not plan like a 62-year-old.

You may delay long-term care planning because “that’s for later.” You may plan to stay indefinitely in a three-story house with a beautiful staircase and no bedroom on the main floor because “we’re active.” You may assume that driving 45 minutes to your primary care physician will always feel manageable. You may invest as though you have 30 more high-earning years ahead.

In other words, the very mindset that supports vitality can quietly undermine proper planning.

This tension shows up constantly in place planning conversations. People tell me they want walkability, connection, intellectual engagement, and access to culture. They also tell me they feel great. Both can be true. But if you are 68 and living in a car-dependent suburb with limited medical infrastructure, the risk profile is different than it was at 48. If your closest family is a two-hour flight away, the logistics of a health event are different than when your body bounced back quickly.

Feeling younger should expand your imagination, not distort your math.

The goal is not to “act your age” in the narrow, stereotyped sense. It is to know your age in the strategic sense. To understand that the next 20 years may be your most meaningful—and that their quality will be shaped by decisions that influenced by where you live, including your physical environment, health, community and finances.

There is a quiet discipline here. You can hold two truths at once:

You are more capable than prior generations were at your age.

You are also older than you feel.

My friend at 62 is wise to feel 45. That optimism will likely add years to his life. But if he plans like he is 45, he risks compressing the very future he hopes to enjoy.

Aging well requires calibration. Too much identification with “old,” and you internalize limitation. Too much identification with “young,” and you ignore exposure.

Feel young. Plan old.

Because the second half of life is not about decline. It is about design. And good design begins with an honest assessment of where you actually stand.

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