Growing Old…

I turned 30, not so long ago and at the time I felt rather depressed about my age. And people around me are turning 30 at an alarming rate making it quite a club. And no one is getting any more excited with age! So, what are the watch out signs when you know you are growing old and walking closer towards becoming irrelevant?

1. You know you are definitely growing no younger when the music you liked and listened to tends to be played in “Classics” radio and TV channels and retro theme parties. I have to increasingly listen out and force to like what I would have disliked just to stay relevant with the coming generations.
2. Suddenly, health and longevity becomes a concern in life. I had never spent any time in my life, till I was about 28, about the repercussions of leading a deranged life filled with late nights, greasy food and a lot of “injurious to health” stuff. And I have started exercising, eating low fat soups and maintaining a “early to bed and early to rise” pattern to my life; as I am sure most of you in the post 30 club are!
3. When you are going about morning schedules where the mind tends to wonder, unless you are one of those who takes a book or newspaper to the toilet, and thoughts of your mortality flashes through the mind, you are definitely growing old. It is here that most outrageous ambitions (formulated in your early life) are redrafted and the realizations of “there is not enough time” comes to haunt you.
4. With Netflix available, I have recently started watching movies and TV series from the past years that make more sense to me that the new generation TV hits like Covert Affairs, Suits, White Collar, etc. The likes of Battlestar Gallactica, Stargate, Big Bang Theory and the likes seem to appeal to my intellect. When that happens you know you are getting out dated.
5. This one applies to the current generation that is turning 30 and journeying beyond. You don’t seem to think anyone could write better that those whose books you grew up with. John Grisham and Jeffrey Archer were there best ever thriller writers. And when you find the young asking you questions about whether you understood Ayn Rand’s books and feel critically about such questions, you know you are growing old.
6. When you were young you would hang out with the young and now the young of the yesteryears have grown older; moving out of the fast life and action packed evenings to Poker Parties on the weekends with poker chips (as against real money!) and barbeque outings. When you get invited to poker parties, barbeque picnics and there are more than one kids running around, you know you are growing old.
7. Around this time there is a definite tendency to new hobbies that, for no specifically obvious reasons, are low on physical exertion, tend to look lucrative. For me, it was cooking, I took to cooking with a vengeance.
8. You are definitely growing older when clichés of a regulated life, like ‘early to bed…”, start to make sense and you tend to knit them into the daily routine.
9. A definite sign of age is in coming to terms with the fact that drinking binges are not your cup of tea and you switch to light beers and the occasional wine to get high.
10. And, last but not the least, you spend time writing blogs about the 10 sure signs of aging…!