When I was young I knew older people, liked some of them, but relationship with them was mostly student/mentor,or child/parent. Now that I am old, my relationships with friends a generation younger are more intimate and I wondered why until I really began to think about it seriously. Mostly, I am told by them that they feel comfortable in relating to me as a peer. I do not treat them differently than I do friends my age and they do the same with me. This change occurred in me when I realized that, even though I have some things to offer from my own life experiences, my friends teach me how to stay current with the constant changes in the world.
A few more things I keep in mind are, while I may make suggestions, I never force advice on others. Years of being a therapist taught me that I can only live in my own skin and so I make no demand for behaviors from other people with one exception. I demand that people respect my boundaries as I respect theirs. We are all entitled to our own physical and mental boundaries as we are entitled to live our own lives..
There is one great sadness for me as I am losing so many of the friends in my generation. While I can share feelings, goals, happiness, life events with those younger than I, they really cannot share the same milestones with me through which I have passed or am passing. Those can only be shared by people nearer my own age many of who, unfortunately, are stuck in them and seem to have forgotten what it is to live in those bodies and minds that start at birth and travel through all the ages to reach our own now. The main thing, I guess, is the elders can relate to most of the issues of the youngers, but if you haven't gotten there yourself, it reverts to the old Indian saying, "you can't know a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins." Even if I can relate to younger people, I have to change the context from those in my life during the same passage of life. I knew (the depression of the 30s, WW!!, Dixieland and New Orleans Jazz, night clubs, jobs that you can work at for 40 or more years and get a decent pension after retirement, a job that will use all your training and pay accordingly, deciding on a spouse, becoming a parent, and most importantly, figuring out who you are, what you want out of life and how to go about getting some of it.) I shut lights, try to conserve energy and reuse as much as I can. It is hard to wash out the experience of the Great Depression. Planned obsolescence had not been born way back then.
If you outlive your friends, it will be mighty lonely if you can't get a long with the next generation or the one after that. Becoming a great grandparent has put me within four generations. Luckily, I accept change easily or I would succumb to the boredom and loneliness I see in many others my age who seem lost without people who know them and onto whom they can cling. .There is no map or book of instructions for growing old, you just have to figure it out for yourself though it helps if there are some good models around. We will all grow old. Only some of us will do it independently, happily, and with gratification for our life.
A few more things I keep in mind are, while I may make suggestions, I never force advice on others. Years of being a therapist taught me that I can only live in my own skin and so I make no demand for behaviors from other people with one exception. I demand that people respect my boundaries as I respect theirs. We are all entitled to our own physical and mental boundaries as we are entitled to live our own lives..
There is one great sadness for me as I am losing so many of the friends in my generation. While I can share feelings, goals, happiness, life events with those younger than I, they really cannot share the same milestones with me through which I have passed or am passing. Those can only be shared by people nearer my own age many of who, unfortunately, are stuck in them and seem to have forgotten what it is to live in those bodies and minds that start at birth and travel through all the ages to reach our own now. The main thing, I guess, is the elders can relate to most of the issues of the youngers, but if you haven't gotten there yourself, it reverts to the old Indian saying, "you can't know a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins." Even if I can relate to younger people, I have to change the context from those in my life during the same passage of life. I knew (the depression of the 30s, WW!!, Dixieland and New Orleans Jazz, night clubs, jobs that you can work at for 40 or more years and get a decent pension after retirement, a job that will use all your training and pay accordingly, deciding on a spouse, becoming a parent, and most importantly, figuring out who you are, what you want out of life and how to go about getting some of it.) I shut lights, try to conserve energy and reuse as much as I can. It is hard to wash out the experience of the Great Depression. Planned obsolescence had not been born way back then.
If you outlive your friends, it will be mighty lonely if you can't get a long with the next generation or the one after that. Becoming a great grandparent has put me within four generations. Luckily, I accept change easily or I would succumb to the boredom and loneliness I see in many others my age who seem lost without people who know them and onto whom they can cling. .There is no map or book of instructions for growing old, you just have to figure it out for yourself though it helps if there are some good models around. We will all grow old. Only some of us will do it independently, happily, and with gratification for our life.
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