Looking Older Than Your Age
When I was young, if somebody asks me about my age, my usual reply was “never mind, I really look older than my age”. And that was true, I looked older than my age but I also made sure that I talk the way I looked. While many of us would do everything to look younger as we grow old, we sometime forget the beauty in having looks that’s older than our real age. For one, old-looking people readily gain respect from younger ones. There are many more advantages to discover if you will care to continue reading this article.
First, beauty in having looks that’s older than our age does not refer to being able to take advantage of the privileges of senior citizens like the twenty (20%) discount on medicines, public transport fares, movie theaters, restaurant and hotel bills, VAT exemptions, and others specified in the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010. Even if you look like sixty (60) years old and above, you cannot be among the about five (5M) senior citizens of the Philippines who legally enjoy those privileges. If you try to avail of them, you will be asked to present the senior citizen (SC) identification (ID) card issued by your local government unit (LGU). Proof of birth is needed before an LGU issue a senior citizen’s ID card (get plain lanyards for your ID cards, here) and looking old is not enough.
There are some advantages of looking older than your true age that you can enjoy without necessarily violating any law. These are being able to join the real senior citizens, the physically-challenged people and the pregnant women in the special lanes when paying electric, telephone and water bills. The banks also have this queuing privilege and there’s a special coach at mass transport trains (MRT and LRT) for you. Can you think of other advantages that people who look older than their age enjoy or can avail of?
I am sorry Ed….but I don’t agree …looking younger than you actually are has so many advantages than special discounts of senior citizens. First, when you know you look younger than your age, it gives you a good feeling—a great trigger -upper to make things happen and refresh even if things that have happened to you are sad and breaking your heart. Looking younger than your age gives you more compliments and it does make you feel good even if you have a bad day. It is also a message that you are taking care of yourself really well. When you see people who look older than their age, you can’t help but wonder what’s wrong and why did they let go and make this happen—it looks like they just quit and resigned to their sad fate—that troubles overwhelm them and that they forget to take care of themselves. Look at a person who looks older than his age, you can say, “he probably is smoking too much, too much drinking, too much wasting, or not taking care of the skin or maybe because he is overwhelmed with too much tribulations that they eat her up , instead of letting go of those problems and move on. What can be seen outside can reflect what’s inside sometimes. We should always take care of our body —not necesssarily to look younger than our age, but to give us a good and healthy sense of well-being that when everybody sees us, we strike inspiration and a sense of awe that we lead a good life despite our circumstances.
I’m not saying we should not give respect and esteem to old people…of course we should…they have more wisdom and they are placed in birth ahead of us to set examples. What I’m saying is, we should not let ourselves look like we don’t care about our well-being —because looking young gives a good positive image to others, too.
Thank you for your comment, Bingkee. I wrote this article so that those people looking older than their real age like me won’t despair so much. 🙂
Looking young can mean you don’t get taken seriously. But it shouldn’t matter how you look, what matters is who you are.
Hello Ben! Thank you for the visit and the comment. It would have been nicer if one looks young and respectable. It just so happen that not everybody can have the best of both worlds.
Thanks for this post Sir Edzee..but i also beg to disagree, second d motion to Ate Bing.. 😀 but Ben also right..looks doesn’t really matter..what matters most is being who really you are..
great post here..