Change in people's lives

At bottom I think it's about loss rather than laziness. Any change, even a good one, means giving up something familiar, and people feel a certain loss much more sharply than an uncertain gain. Someone offered a better job in another city doesn't weigh the salary first; they picture leaving their friends, their usual market, the route they could walk blindfolded. Habit is also efficient: a routine lets you get through the day without making a hundred small decisions, so disturbing it is tiring. Do the young cope better? In general, yes, but I'd say that's down to circumstances more than character. A twenty-two-year-old with no mortgage and no children can afford to gamble, while a fifty-year-old with a family to support has far more to lose from the same leap. That said, I'd challenge the stereotype a little. My grandparents' generation lived through war, rationing and the arrival of the internet, and adapted to all three, so older people are tougher than we assume. They just resist change that's imposed without explanation, as most of us do. As for careers, I'm fairly sure frequent change will become normal. Whole occupations are being reshaped by automation within a decade, so the idea of training once and coasting until retirement is fading. I'd expect people to retrain two or three times, which means the most useful thing schools can teach is how to learn quickly, not any single body of knowledge.