“The energy, man. I’d give anything to have that boundless energy again.”

This was Tom, 64, a former marathon runner who now gets winded walking up two flights of stairs.

He was one of 50 people I interviewed last month about what they miss most from their younger years.

I’ve been curious about aging lately.

Maybe it’s because I just turned 36 and my knees started making weird sounds during workouts.

Or maybe it’s because I keep meeting people in their 60s who seem both content with life and wistful about certain things they’ve lost.

So I did what any curious writer would do.

I grabbed my notebook and started asking questions.

The responses surprised me.

Not because they were profound or unexpected, but because of how consistent they were.

The same themes kept popping up, interview after interview.

People from different backgrounds, different careers, different life experiences, all missing remarkably similar things.

Here are the 8 answers that came up again and again.

1) The physical resilience to bounce back from anything

Almost everyone mentioned this first.

Not just energy, but the ability to pull an all-nighter and still function the next day.

To drink too much on Friday and feel fine by Saturday afternoon.

To play pickup basketball without stretching and not pay for it later.

One woman told me she used to work double shifts at the hospital, go dancing until 3 AM, then show up for her morning shift like nothing happened.

“Now I need two days to recover from grocery shopping,” she laughed.

I get it.

In my twenties, during those long corporate years, I’d work until midnight, hit the gym at 5 AM, and still have energy for drinks after work.

These days? I need at least seven hours of sleep, or I’m useless.

The consensus was clear: they don’t just miss having energy.

They miss not having to think about energy.

They miss taking their body’s cooperation for granted.

2) The freedom from major responsibilities

“You know what I did when I was 25 and hated my job? I quit. Just like that.”

This came from a retired CFO who spent the last 30 years of his career at the same company.

He wasn’t advocating irresponsibility.

He was nostalgic for a time when the stakes were lower.

Multiple people echoed this sentiment.

They missed being able to make decisions without considering mortgages, kids’ college funds, aging parents, or health insurance.

They missed when their biggest worry was making rent, not whether they’d saved enough for retirement.

One guy put it perfectly: “When you’re young, you can afford to fail. When you’re older, failure affects too many other people.”

3) The excitement of experiencing everything for the first time

A woman who’d traveled to 47 countries told me nothing beats the feeling of your first international trip.

“Every trip now is wonderful, but that first time seeing the Eiffel Tower? That feeling doesn’t come back.”

This wasn’t just about travel.

People talked about first loves, first apartments, first real jobs, first concerts.

The newness of life when everything feels like an adventure waiting to happen.

I’ve been thinking about this one a lot.

There’s something special about doing things before you know what to expect.

Before you’ve developed preferences and patterns.

When everything is discovery.

Reading Seneca recently, I came across his thoughts on how familiarity breeds contempt.

Maybe that’s too strong, but familiarity definitely breeds… less excitement.

4) The metabolism that let them eat whatever they wanted

This one made everyone laugh, but they were dead serious about missing it.

“I used to eat an entire pizza at 2 AM and wake up with abs,” one guy said. “Now I look at bread and gain three pounds.”

The stories were ridiculous.

Living on ramen and beer in college.

Eating fast food every day without consequence.

Never counting calories or reading nutrition labels.

A former athlete told me she ate 4,000 calories a day in her twenties and couldn’t keep weight on.

Now she carefully tracks everything and still struggles.

It’s not just about vanity or weight.

They miss the freedom of not thinking about food as medicine or poison.

They miss when eating was simple pleasure, not complex calculation.

5) The depth and ease of friendships

“Making friends at 60 is like dating with kids. It’s possible, but everything’s more complicated.”

This resonated hard.

People talked about college friends you’d see every day without planning.

Work friends who’d grab drinks spontaneously.

The ease of connection when everyone’s schedule was flexible and no one had to arrange babysitters.

Several people mentioned how friendships now require so much logistics.

Calendars to coordinate.

Spouses to consider.

Health issues to work around.

One woman said she hasn’t made a real friend in ten years.

Not for lack of trying, but because the depth just isn’t there anymore.

“Everyone’s too busy, too tired, or too set in their ways.”

6) The belief that there was unlimited time ahead

This one hit different.

A retired teacher told me that at 25, she genuinely believed she had time to become a novelist, learn three languages, and maybe switch careers twice.

“The illusion of infinite possibility was intoxicating,” she said.

People missed not doing mental math about how many years they had left.

They missed five-year plans that could fail and still leave decades for redemption.

They missed thinking 40 was old.

One guy said he spent his thirties waiting for his “real life” to begin.

Now at 67, he realizes that was his real life.

As someone who burned through a startup failure at 30, I understand the luxury of thinking you have endless chances to get it right.

That cushion of time is something you don’t appreciate until it starts shrinking.

7) The knees, backs, and joints that just worked

Different from general energy, this was specifically about pain-free movement.

“I miss sitting on the floor and standing up without planning my strategy,” one woman said.

The examples were endless.

Reaching high shelves without shoulder pain.

Turning their neck to check blind spots.

Walking downstairs without holding the railing.

Sleeping in any position without consequences.

A former contractor told me he misses not having a relationship with his chiropractor.

“I used to not even know what a chiropractor did.”

It’s the little movements we take for granted.

The automatic physical confidence that your body will do what you ask without negotiation or preparation.

8) The optimism before life got complicated

The final theme was harder to articulate, but came up constantly.

People missed believing that most problems had solutions.

That hard work guaranteed success.

That good people got good outcomes.

The naive optimism before divorce, death, disease, and disappointment taught them otherwise.

“I miss believing my parents would live forever,” one person said quietly.

Another talked about the period before her son’s addiction, when she still believed love could fix anything.

It wasn’t that they’d become pessimists.

But they missed the simplicity of believing the world was generally fair and manageable.

Before they learned that sometimes awful things happen to wonderful people.

Before they understood that not all problems have solutions.

Rounding things off

After 50 conversations, I sat in my 2014 Honda Civic processing what I’d heard.

The things people missed weren’t really about youth itself, but about what youth represented: possibility, resilience, and the luxury of not knowing what you don’t know.

What struck me most was that no one wished to actually be young again.

They’d learned too much, grown too much.

They just missed certain features of that operating system.

Here’s what I’m taking from this: Most of what they miss is already gone for me, too.

At 36, I’ll never again have the metabolism of a 20-year-old or the illusion of unlimited time.

But I still have more energy than I’ll have at 60.

More flexibility than I’ll have at 70.

Maybe the lesson isn’t to mourn what’s lost but to recognize what we still have before it joins the list of things we miss.

Because if these conversations taught me anything, it’s that future you will miss something about right now.

The question is whether present you will notice it before it’s gone.