Those who are now in their 40s are Gen X'ers and partially Millennials, which means that they fully caught perhaps the most incredible period in the history of humanity, when our life gradually moved online, and a wide variety of analog things gave way to digital services. The period when all sorts of "worldly wisdom" that we were regaled with by our parents and elders in general turned over time into amusing absurdities. Like, for example, that very statement that we will not always have a calculator with us. Well, yes, on the other hand, they are partly right - for example, on my smartphone, the calculator application is on the second screen, not on the first...
And even at 40+, health begins to remind us of itself. No, not really. We just start to realize that there is also such a problem, and if at the age of twenty we could hang out all night and then feel great in the morning, at thirty we could hang out all night and in the morning feel like, well, after hanging out all night, then after forty, we sleep all night and in the morning, we sometimes still feel like we've been hanging out all night. And it all comes from, for example, having slept in an uncomfortable position.
That is, if the kids let us sleep at all. Your social media feed is gradually filled with photos from holidays and sports competitions - only these are no longer you and your friends, but their offspring. You finally understand what an amazing thing a minivan actually is!
On the other hand, if you are forty or over, then you have seen a lot of really wonderful things. You saw Michael Jordan on the court with your own eyes, watched Michael Jackson just standing silent on the stage during the Superbowl XXVII Halftime Show, and weeped when Jack Dawson sank after the Titanic. You have a lot of "analog" skills that are unlikely to ever come in handy, but you can amuse the youth, or, well, your friends' kids when they come over. And you're also gradually moving from the "cool dude" category to the "weird guy" cohort. But that doesn't bother you, damn it, because it's, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, 'August of your years!'
Well, there are many things that can easily identify a person in their 40s, both amusing and sad. But at the end of the day, each age has its own undeniable advantages - and if you are now forty, then this is that invaluable alloy when you already have worldly experience, but there is still strength. Okay, even if your back hurts in the morning. So what? Anyway, it won't hurt to scroll this selection to the very end, crack up at the most spot-on submissions and maybe add some more apt and witty signs from your own - in case you, like me myself, are at this really wonderful age!
