Comment on the fact that we get older everyday

Itelli got me thinking...What is it like to get old? I mean we get older everyday, but we don't really feel it. One morning I woke up (accidentally the morning of my 25th birthday) and felt no older than the day before, but I felt like I'd become an adult. Maybe I should have felt that way beforehand, at 18 or 20, but I didn't. The life as a student can do that to you I guess, being older than everyone else, but still feeling their age. However, on that morning I suddenly felt different like I was supposed to have a family of my own and a house and all that. It has been freaking me out ever since and it's been a couple of years. I've always wondered if one actually feels old when old - I mean except for the aches and pains, which naturally comes with age, do my parents feel like their age? Do I feel like my age? I don't know! I feel older everyday because of the fact that I am supposed to be accomplished by now, have a flat, a family perhaps and most recently a job. There has always, at least for me, been a fear-factor related to the issue of growing old. Why does it have to be this way? It doesn't help of course when the prospect of getting older, a pensioner, means instability, especially when living in a capitalist world. Because of the decrease in population in Western Europe we will most likely have less when we decide to stop working, and today the lowest social benefits for pensioners in Norway is appalling - especially when compared to the average wage. Because of the high cost of almost any commodity (let's leave salmon out of this) many elderly are having a hard time coping with the price the most basic necessities, such as rent and food. When our little Greek friend was here we saw an 80-90 year old woman looking for bottles in a council bin...IN NORWAY! I feel more afraid than ever about getting old, if society don't change that will be me. Since the government wants to implement a new pension system, which in fact means that all you earn will be counted towards your pension, and the more you work the more you get. However, this means that a researcher like myself, who has spent six/seven years studying will be behind those years...so I will have to work until I'm over 80. I just don't get it, we are encouraged to get a degree, but we are then expected to work for longer...and end up with a tiny pension that is complimented (hopefully and in best case scenario) with a private one. Is this the way it should be in a so-called social democracy? I hope not, but I fear it is. If a socialist country can't do anything about this, which can?