Optimism and ageing Options

[VH2]

Once you have faced up to the fact that you are not immortal [that one day you will die (and statistically, most likely from heart/circulation disease/failure or cancer)], come to terms with it, and accepted that you have a finite time left on earth then, surprisingly, the optimism and enthusiasm return.

I count myself extremely lucky that unlike the previous two generations of my family I haven't had to endure a world war.

Many of us have been spared the horrors of war, but that is just the luck of where we happened to be born. Since WWII there have been wars somehwere on the planet almost constantly, and millions have died in them, many of them killed in our name, or that of our so-caled allies.

http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/deat...tsjune52006.pdf

[Tortellini]

I do fear a bit for the future. On a grand scale, there is always something to worry about but little point in worrying about it! On a personal level, I am worried that the health problems I have now will only get worse and that by the time I get to retire (70?) I won't have the health to do anything that my own retired parents do now. I also doubt that I will have their wealth as my pension is being cut as we speak!

[Pixie*Porsche]

I'm only 23 .... so not sure if I belong on this thread or not! A lot of the time I feel like I was born in completely the wrong era. I love old things, especially cars and think that growing up when my mum was would have been very exciting (born 1959) but really thinking about it, I'm not sure it would have really been any different.

Anacrusis makes a fantastic point re her MIL, I see exactly what she is talking about with some of my relatives who I don't think are quite as old as this MIL is! The good thing about today is that everyone has so many choices, I chose to become a music teacher among other things, making quite a bit of money on the internet - something that would not have been possible if I were born when my mum was.

My family are probably distinctly working class with me not quite fitting in, if I'm honest. They don't get my fascination with music and learning new things and even trying to make as much of my life as is possible. I think a lot of it has to do with their own expectations growing up - they were expected to leave school and work some mind numbing job. They were expected to get married and have a child / children. I wasn't. In fact I reckon my parents thought I'd be single for the rest of my life!

[Aquarelle]

I?m rather like a helter skelter on this one. And sometimes it depends on something as simple as the weather. On the whole I am more optimistic than pessimistic both about the world and about personal things than is my partner and this often causes jokes at home.

I would agree with a lot of what has been said ? certainly about coming to terms with mortality and being thankful for the good things life has brought. On the other hand I don?t think we should entirely ignore the complaints of people who are nostalgic for the past. After all, very often the baby has been thrown out with the bath water.

[maggiemay]

Aquarelle - excellent point about baby and bathwater. So often it is the case with so-called progress.

It is true we have gained a great deal in the past generation. We have also lost much that will never be restored.

[anacrusis]

So what sorts of things have been lost?

[Blackbow]

aged M-i-L is the one in my life who likes to come down on the world of today as if it had no merits, thereby getting on my wick (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).

Yep, that attitude gets on my wick as well.

[Arundodonuts]

So what sorts of things have been lost?

As my hero Tony Capstick said, "We had lots of things in those days they don't have now. Rickets, Diphtheria, Hitler......."

[Aquarelle]

What any individual feels has been lost will very much depend on their experience and will not necessarily be the same for everyone. Also for some people what they regret may be seen as a good riddance by others. Here are some of the things I feel have been lost or devalued on at least a large enough scale in my experience to be noticeable.

Peace and quiet. Our environment is increasingly noisy.
Time to reflect, absorb and think. This goes up and down a bit with one?s daily commitments but is, I think, in general scarcer than it was.
The ability to reason and think things through instead of jumping on the current bandwagon. This has no doubt always been so, but with the increase of media power it is, I think, more widespread.
Polite exchange in debate ? that came to my notice when comparing extracts seen on television from former presidential election campaigns and the campaign which has just finished in France.
Childhood ? drastically shortened by early puberty, and cashed in on by advertisers.
The respect for privacy.
Fidelity ? not the kind of tying people together in a hothouse of hate but the idea that you can get out of the responsibilities of marriage, parenthood and friendship when it suits you.
Language ? a living thing which must and will change but it would be nice if that didn?t mean depriving the younger generation of much that is beautiful.

These are just a few things. I know perfectly well t that I am laying myself open to criticism and that there is another side to every coin and also that it can be argued that these things have always been so. But over a period of several decades emphases change and I stand by my opinion that this is not automatically a good thing.

Very often it?s a case of finding the right balance. Of course there are enormous advantages ? I lament the lack of privacy in our lives but I don?t criticise the media when they reveal something that should be aired. It is all very complicated and requires a book ? not a post ? to examine it fully.

I can appreciate that some people find other people's hankering after the past and criticsm of the present
very irritating. But if the present does not contain enough of the past then the future will be built on a very shaky foundation.

[StuMac]

What any individual feels has been .
Childhood ? drastically shortened by early puberty, and cashed in on by advertisers.

Not going to go into this sort of thing a lot but please.........childhood shortened??

Perhaps you mean puberty no longer delayed by poor diet?

Not so long ago that school leaving age was 14 (my mother left at 14) and it was very unusual for a woman to be unmarried in her 20s (my mother married 2 weeks after her 21st birthday).

.....work by 14 and married by 21 sounds like a pretty short childhood to me. That was Britain in the late 40s / early 50s.

Edit...this sort of discussion can go on for ever and never get anywhere. Example, counter example and so on....going back to piano practice!

[anacrusis]

Thank you Aquarelle, a thoughtful response, and yes, I can see where you're coming from, even though many of those points to me have other angles which also merit consideration. I do actually have only one major disagreement with you - that regarding the ability to reason and think things through. It's precisely because people in the past accepted as fact ideas and concepts, simply on the say-so of their elders, that they mourn that past, I think: the simplicity of swallowing whole "truths" which turn out to be unfounded and needing questioning, even when that is painful to do. It's now that people, at any rate in some cultures, are learning to pick over what they're told, and to be sceptical and seek evidence for the opinions put forward to them, over a greater breadth of a population than only the intelligentsia: we need this critical thinking in order to be able to move forward and make sense of the changes developing in our society.

I do know what you mean about the shortening of childhood: however, although my children are more sophisticated by far than I was at parallel ages to them, I don't see that as a disadvantage. My two have poise and self-assurance, are learning now some of the basics of self-determination which I had to learn once at university, and they're still in the safe home environment whilst doing so - once they flit the nest I suspect I will be able to be far less worried about them for that very reason (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). I think many who talk about this aspect of growing up in a negative way are concerned with the concept of childhood innocence, but I'd have to agree with StuMac that kids who started work at fourteen in the past will have stopped being kids, most abruptly, at that point. The trick is to adapt to those aspects of innocence seen as being "lost": okay, so kids know more, but there are other ways to protect them from unwise experimentation....

[Swell Box]

.....work by 14 and married by 21 sounds like a pretty short childhood to me. That was Britain in the late 40s / early 50s.

It was indeed a short childhood; but in terms of life expectancy in the 1940's, ages of 14 and 21 represented a comparatively large chunk of life.

I suspect part of the misconception here is that young children of today generally enjoy much 'softer', better protected and multicoloured lives until they reach the age of about eleven or twelve, when they are rudely exposed to the realities of life through secondary school, the internet, and increasing interest in the media.

By contrast, most children of the 1940's and 50's would have had harder, grittier black and white upbringings, without television, cars, plentiful food and fizzy drinks, central heating, welfare, modern healthcare and so forth. Many more children of this generation would have been exposed to death of a close family member than current teenagers.

Punishment of children was also much more physical in those days, so perhaps the transition to work at the age of 14 was not as much of a shock then as it would be to the children of today. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)



Thinking of my own outlook on life (as a child of the mid 1950's), I am far more of a realist and less of an idealist today that I was thirty years ago, (some would say more cynical), and I see things much more for what they are, rather than how they're painted.

I am also angered by people who like to make life difficult for others by playing petty politics (at all levels), and those that exert undue and unfair influence over others through 'funny handshakes' or clique loyalties.

At the same time I worry far less about things I cannot change, but instead try to conserve my energies for those things that I can change.

I am immensely grateful for what I have today, and I am much more accepting of my lot in life than I was thirty years ago.

However, I must admit that I do feel slightly cheated by the older generation, which enjoyed (and squandered) plentiful natural resources, was responsible for massive pollution, bought cheap land and houses which spiralled in value, and in many cases received very generous pensions which I am paying for, whilst I doubt that I will ever be able to retire myself. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

I am probably more optimistic now than I was thirty years ago, partly through greater realism, but more because I see far more opportunities now than ever.

SB

[VH2]

At the same time I worry far less about things I cannot change, but instead try to conserve my energies for those things that I can change.

Stephen Covey would love you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Swell Box]

At the same time I worry far less about things I cannot change, but instead try to conserve my energies for those things that I can change.

Stephen Covey would love you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I am pleased about that, although I had to Google his name. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

SB

[Aquarelle]

Just coming back in on the shortened childhood thing. No Stumac, I don?t mean puberty delayed by poor diet. I mean puberty hastened by poor diet, probably caused by pollutants A few years ago I had a little girl pupil of eight who was being treated for early puberty. At eight years old she was showing signs of physical development more compatible with fourteen. This is apparently becoming increasingly common and it is worrying.
To add to the point about childhood innocence made by anacrusis, no it wasn?t innocence I was on about. What I meant was that the timeless aspect of childhood is what is missing today when there are imposed upon children frenetic attempts to meet deadlines and standards, to rush through childhood as if the one thing that mattered was growing up as fast as possible.
It?s nice that anacrusis can feel her children are poised to meet the challenges of life. But I am afraid this is not the case for many. I do actually teach a group of children who are brought up by their parents in a way which allows them to experience their childhood fully, to come to terms as they mature with the vicissitudes of life, to pass from the relatively protected world of childhood to the world of adolescence and adulthood with support and encouragement. Over the years I have seen several of these children grow into poised and confident young adults. But among those I teach and have taught many are far less fortunate. Some are even more or less left to bring themselves up.
The one thing that strikes me about the group I mention is that they are allowed time to be children. They are not hot house flowers, and it?s also that kind of thing, StuMac, that I meant. Yes, , I know this kind of discussion can ? and probably will go round in circles ? and of course there will be examples and counter examples. But it?s nice to air our thoughts and hear about those of others.
But back on the wider issues I would agree with a lot of what Swell box says - and I am also going to have to google Stephen Covey!