It's often said that beauty is wasted on the young. I never understood this until I hit my early 40's, which is when the first major signs of aging became apparent. You know the kind of thing, a neck that begins to wobble just under the chin and those lines on the forehead and around the eyes that are slow to shallow after a facial expression. These are the first signs of aging.

I understand now why getting older is such an unpleasant experience (visually), and why so many of us are slow to accept it as a natural part of being. When we're young, that's all we know, so we have nothing to compare our youth to. Young people don't appreciate taught skin, lineless faces, and thick crops of hair, because that's just the way it's always been. When we're old of course, we can compare how we are now with how we used to be, and it's this yearning for our youthful good looks which make us rebel against the aging process. The anti-aging and anti-wrinkle entrepreneurs of the 21st century have made their fortunes out of folks just like me.

Unless there's a miracle cure for the appearance of aging, then there will never be a shortage of cosmetic products dominating the ground floors of department stores and salons. But is beauty or youthful looks really only skin deep or does physical appearance really have an influence on our daily lives. I can't speak for every town in every state, but where I come from you would rarely find a receptionist over weight and over 35 in most of the high street office buildings down town. I have had personal experience of having numerous job rejections and ignored job applications at just 41 years of age. As an experiment, I applied for a bunch of jobs I had no interest in and put my age down as 28. Of those 10 applications I got 2 rejections and 8 invitations for interviews.

Okay, so there comes a point where we have to accept those things we cannot change and just focus on the ones we can. As far as aging is concerned, we can't reverse the process but we can and should take great pride in our appearance, and look as good as we possibly can for our age. There are plenty of anti-aging and anti-wrinkle lotions, creams, and potions on the market to help us out.

Although most of these products exaggerate their claims of reversal and elimination of the visible signs of aging, many can and do help to take care of the skin nonetheless. And they're not just for woman either. We are seeing more and more anti-aging and anti-wrinkle products on the shelves for men too, and it's nice to see societies not letting themselves go as they used to in past generations. No disrespects to my grandfather, (god rest his soul), but he looked like the living dead for about 20 years before he popped his socks!

Some of us find it necessary to take more extreme measures to combat the aging process like cosmetic surgery of the cutting variety. Going under the knife is a last resort for me but if I'm honest, it's not been totally crossed off my lists of anti-aging treatments. I have a friend who is 77 years old and could easily pass for mid to late 50's. He had a major face lift some years back, but when he reached his late 60's all of his hair fell out, and I mean all of it. As a consequence, you can visibly see the 2 scars just above his ears where he had his cut and tuck surgery, and so it's obvious to the world now why he looks the way he does.

Acceptance and self care is what's needed to those facing a mid life crisis of sorts. Additionally, an attitude adjustment within society as a whole would also go a long way to lessen the pains for those of us who are over 40 and experiencing our first signs of aging.