Posted on 02/18/2026 6:13:58 AM PST by fruser1
Sitting down to put your socks on, seeing previous clothes come back into fashion and asking 'who?' when watching the Brit Awards are all signs you are getting on.
The study was by American Pistachio Growers, which has partnered with actor John Thomson, 56, to urge mid-life adults to age positively.
1. Talking about aches and pains with friends
2. Groaning when bending down
3. Preferring quiet venues to noisy ones
4. Preferring a quiet drink over a night out
5. Enjoying an early night
6. Not caring about the latest fashion trends
7. Thinking that new music isn't as good as it used to be
8. A recurring ache that doesn't disappear
9. Using phrases like 'back in my day' or 'remember when*?'
10. Sitting down to put socks on
11. Caring less about how you look
12. Taking shoes off as soon as you get inside - slippers have become a necessity!
13. Noticing something you wore in your youth is now back in fashion
14. Starting conversations with 'Do you remember when*?'
15. Reading menus at arm's length
16. Talking to yourself
17. Moaning about politics
18. Feeling more confident/self-assured
19. Getting up at 6am naturally
20. First 'Who?' when watching the Brit Awards
21. Looking forward to gardening
22. Feeling confounded by AI
23. Listening to the radio or podcasts instead of club music
24. Getting excited about new home appliances
25. Checking the weather forecast hourly
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5. Enjoying an early night (I am, and have always been, a fastidious night owl)
11. Caring less about how you look. (If it means I spend time preening in front of the mirror, No. If it means not going out in public wearing Pajama Bottoms, Yes.)
12. Taking shoes off as soon as you get inside - slippers have become a necessity! (Nope. Don't do this.)
15. Reading menus at arm's length. (I have bifocals. Does this mean I can say I don't do this? And isn't that what the magnify feature on a smart phone is for?)
19. Getting up at 6am naturally (I get up at 8:00 AM naturally. However, I am awake at many times during the night. But I stubbornly stay in bed until 8:00 AM)
20. First 'Who?' when watching the Brit Awards. (I don't watch the Brit Awards, any Awards, or television at all, and have not since the late Nineties.)
21. Looking forward to gardening. (I am trying, to help out my wife who is aging with me, but...I left the Navy because I hated having dirty hands. Still do.)
25. Checking the weather forecast hourly. (My wife does that nearly by the minute. I NEVER look at the weather. My weather report is simply going out of the door and looking at the sky.)
These make me feel smug and completely superior...:)
Ronald Reagon once said: “You know you’re getting old, when faced with two temptations, you choose the one that gets you home by 9PM.
I don’t watch television. I don’t drive at night because of deer. I write down everything.
One that I liked which isn’t on the list, hits you in your 40s, “when you bend down to get something off the floor you look to see if there is anything else while you are there”, that bending over thing sneaks up on you gentle like.
As far as loud bars and nightclubs, it is hard to do your magic of getting her out to the parking lot, or at least elsewhere, if you can’t talk to her.
Bkmk
I think I identify with all of these. But I would say 90% of them were true when I was 40. And half were true when I was 30. I am in my 60s now. And I would say they have all been true for quite a while.
When you are young and in a rush you can put your socks on while standing, or even hopping along to the next shoe or piece of clothing, I don’t think anyone does it every time as the routine.
19. Getting up at 6am naturally
6am is sleeping in!
I have always put my socks on while seated. This is a strange one. Why would you stand to put on socks?
I do the grunt when I sit down or get up. I have a work colleague who is in his early 40s who started doing it and we tease him that he is now officially old. He became very self-conscious of it and tries not to when he thinks about it. But he forgets and does it and we point it out.
Hmm...sounds like a serious commitment.
This really just means you have a Japanese wife:
12. Taking shoes off as soon as you get inside - slippers have become a necessity!
I am a few years older...my whole life, I would put my pants on standing up and underwear, and socks too, in total darkness.
I realized if I kept doing that, my wife would find me some morning with the side of my temple caved in by a bedside table, one leg partially in a trouser leg. I can do it, but it isn’t smart for me.
I now sit down, put my underwear on, socks on, and trousers. Then I stand up.
It’s like ladders. I can still climb a ladder. But I keep in mind many a good man has been killed by a ladder. And when I get lazy, and put my trousers on while standing up, finding myself hopping about to keep from falling over, I find myself wondering how many old geezers like me are found in the morning with their temple caved in!
I can balance on one foot and do just for practice (and I have been doing Tai Chi for years, which forces you to do that) but do get bouts of positional vertigo, so I don’t take that chance with getting dressed on one foot anymore unless I am in a rush.
Modern music does suck immaculate. But I think I know good music from crappy music, as I have embraced music of all kinds all the way back to Mozart. Except Rap.
I miss raucous parties, but then again, I deeply enjoy a quiet evening in my hammock looking at the stars, smoking my pipe, and listening to the far off sound of a train, so I never think much anymore about those parties of old.
My wife chides me because I am always fully dressed when we go out of the house, shirt tucked in, plumb line straight, all that, and I make her look under-dressed by comparison, but...she only half-chides me. I think that was embedded in me by being in the military and it never left me.
But then, I still wear a suit to funerals and weddings, and miss the days when you could go to a restaurant and be turned away for trying to wear shorts and sandals inside.
I miss getting dressed up for a special occasion like an anniversary dinner. And I miss that people used to wear good clothes to church.
I am appalled, disgusted, and repelled by this practice of people wearing pajama bottoms, tops, of the entire pajama outfit out in public. When I see young people do it, I think they are slovenly retards. I cannot write here what I think when I see older people do that.
Music that pounds you as if someone were wailing on you with a big club.
The list was me in my 20s.
I sometimes need some expert advice.
I don’t know. They voted for FDR three times.
In Asian cultures it is impolite to where your shoes in the house.
New music really ISN’T as good as older music, which is why they don’t play new music in the grocery stores.
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