Screw Benjamin Buttons: The Top 5 Benefits to Aging

I hate to admit this, but there’s no getting around it anymore. You’re getting older. I’m not, but you definitely are. Most of you are dreading getting older. I’m not. Screw Benjamin Buttons. I can’t wait to get old! There are benefits to being old that I cannot believe! It’s like some secret club, only the members that are in it now have no idea how good they’ve got it.

1. Getting Stuff Cheap: You only have to be 50 join the AARP and you get all kinds of stuff really, really cheap! It costs $63 to join for 5 years. Here’s one benefit: At the movie theater you get 49% off of soda and popcorn. That’s your $63 paid back right there in one trip to the movies! I’m thinking of getting a fake ID so I can pass for 50. Separate from the AARP is the fact that you get cheap coffee virtually everywhere! I admit it, I have a morning Starbucks fix and I can’t wait to cut that bill in half. 

2. Freedom of Speech: We all have freedom of speech, in theory. There are two groups however that can get away with saying whatever they want and people excuse it because of their age. Little kids and old people. How often do you hear some grumpy old person say something outrageous and people around them just shrug their shoulders as if to say, “What are you gonna do? He’s just old.” Whereas if you or I say something crazy, we’re in a meeting with Human Resources the next morning. I’m practicing my Ed Asner voice for those occasions when I want to say what I really think.

3. The Fashion Freezer: Whether we choose to or not, at some point our sense of style and fashion gets frozen in time. We’ve seen these people at work and thought, why are they still wearing clothes or a hairstyle that hasn’t been popular in 20 years? It happens to everyone. Sadly, at some point in the future there’s going to be a whole generation of accountants, lawyers and politicians walking around with their pants hanging off their ass. The upside is that you can stop buying new clothes and put no time or thought into what you wear each day. 

4. Travel: I cannot wait to go on a Golden Memories bus tour! They’re cheap, someone else plans them, does the driving and puts on a movie for you to watch on the ride. Las Vegas here I come! The only downside is that it’s a bus full of old people. 

5. Retirement: Retirement doesn’t mean never working again, it means only working at what you want to. What I want to work at is hanging out with other old dudes at the coffee shop and playing chess all day as I drink my half price coffee. Maybe I’ll still write this blog too. As social media evolves into smaller and smaller sound bites or tweets or whatever comes next I may be the last blogger on Earth in about 10 years. By then my following of grumpy, old people will be tremendous, until they die off of course. 

If you would like to age gracefully with me you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and perhaps enjoy my murder mystery novel White Picket Prisons which you can find by clicking on of the links in the right sidebar. Stay aged my friends.