Are people "set in their ways" after 50?

I am scared this might be the case. I feel more and more that was as I get older. When I was a kid I couldn't understand my parents and their wishes to just sit and never do anything different. But as I get older I feel that way.

I did a little reading on plasticity in the brain and there are a lot of studies that show that plasticity reduces as we age.

Absolutely you can force it.. but, it is more difficult.

I feel like society doesn't help either. At my point in my life there are no abilities to go out and learn things and do different things. I get up.. go to work, come home. Even at work there are no opportunities for doing different things. I am valued because I know my job up and down and down and out and no one is particularly interested in me changing. Except for me.

I even feel like home forces me to do this. Ever weekend it is the same thing, I have errands that I have to do on the weekend, every weekend. There is no time to learn new things or explore new things. This severe clamping down on that makes it difficult to break out.

I have a book that I love called "do it, lets get off our butts" and it says that if you don't push your "comfort zone" it actively shrinks. I feel like that happens as we get older. It is like a cycle... we have our forced comfort zone and as that happens, it gets smaller and smaller.