What do you enjoy more now than you did at 40?

Well the OP reads "enjoy" not perform" but the two are the same for this person.

Now retired over the last 9 years, I can now arguably perform better, three of my favorite activities over 4+ adult decades, photography, skiing, and dynamic freestyle dancing. Most elite adult skiers peak in performance during their younger adult years, and generally into their middle age, retain biomechanical skills given decades of retained neural plasticity, they just need to refresh some each winter. But they lose raw strength, and cut back on skiing challenging terrain, as their body's are more vulnerable to serious injury. For many elite adult skiers, skiing challenging terrain becomes a compulsion and primary reason to ski.

I was never really that interested in skiing dangerous, challenging expert terrain nor skiing fast, but rather just dabbled. Instead, was more focused on enjoyable terrain at moderate speeds, that for this person was recreational mogul skiing. When ski technology changed from long narrow skis for everyone, this small male became very good, as such long skis are difficult and never should have been used for shorter adults including most women, though early designers didn't clearly understand that. Part of that reason is because ski racing tended to dominate ski designs and long skis do allow greater speeds. As a senior, I may not have the raw body strength I once had, but have much built up neural plasticity.

My freestyle dancing is better now after retiring in 2017, because by not working 8-5 m-f week after week for years, I have had a lot more time now each month to build up brain neural plasticity motor cortex connections through repetition. I cannot carry the crushing weights I once did backpacking, but still backpack each year that seems to prevent my muscles from deteriorating in senior age like others that benefits both my skiing and dancing. The 2020 pandemic due to shelter in place policies, forced me to dance much more in urban areas that I used to avoid. The world isn't ready yet for what I have to add about this subject.

Am better at photography now because camera and image post processing technology is better, and as someone coming from a technology career background working with complex equipment and software, I have been able to make the most of that. Especially important recently was the addition of focus bracket capture to the Sony a6700 APS-c mirrorless ILC camera body that has supercharged my ability to capture more subjects in a short period of time when weather and atmospheric conditions are optimal.
 
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I enjoy country and bluegrass music more than I did at 40. I also enjoy a few more tart/vinegar flavored things than I did at 40.

Other than that technological advances have widened my exposure in some areas so things that were unavailable to me previously I enjoy more because I have access to them that I didn't have before.
 
Nothing.

In my forties, I had a high paying job. I was high energy - the joke was I got more done in four hours than most did in eight. Except for my BFF trail riding bud - she was a whirling dervish.

These days trauma injuries are winning the battle and my energy is in the terlet. Make no mistake — I am thankful, but more joyful than in my forties is questionable.
 

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