Feeling a little old this morning? Perhaps a bit rough around the edges after a sleepless night trying to work out why the dinosaurs of rock 'n' roll - the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Eric Clapton et al - keep wheeling themselves back on tour? They should have made enough money to retire by now, right?
Not being a rock star, but knowing that no matter how much I earn, I manage to make it all disappear by the end of the month, perhaps we are all in the same boat - facing the prospect of working until we drop.
Maybe that is the primary reason why the Rolling Stones - Charlie Watts, 64, Mick Jagger, 62, Keith Richards, 61, and Ron Wood, 58 - caused wonderment among their ageing fan base by this week starting yet another gruelling world tour.
To steal a line from their 1981 hit Start Me Up, which kicked off the tour in Boston on Sunday night, it is enough to 'make a grown man cry'. Mind you, with ticket prices at up to US$400, they doubtless will be crying all the way to the bank, or, if they keep up this sort of behaviour, the clinic where their impending hip replacement surgery will take place.
Anyone who saw Jagger and Richards at certain Wan Chai discos after their Harbour Fest show on November 9, 2003, would know that the latter is as probable as the former.
Such matters aside, the fact that the Stones and others of their era are still on the road and working as hard now as they were four decades ago is indicative of 21st century life, no matter whether you are - at the top or the bottom of the heap.
With global birth rates falling because children are increasingly being considered an expensive burden on lifestyles and an impediment to careers, populations are inevitably ageing. Add to that an ever-increasing cost of living, and the reality is a future of work and more work, whether to make ends meet or to keep countries afloat.