Aging positively or aging negatively, it's all, in our, attitudes, how we interpret things of our own, pasts, do we focus more on the better, or the worse days, and that will be, the determinant, of how GOOD our old age is! Translated…
A life of noting and knowing the tracks of, time, we all have different attitudes, for some, the older they grow, the wider the world, becomes, and yet, for some, the path they walked, became, narrower, and narrower, with every step they, took.
with the social supports of the people in your age group...photo from online
A good friend of my mother's, is in her nineties, with many grandchildren and children, who are all very established in their work individually; she's affluent, with good health, she's what everybody envied as "the success group member". But she's always hung on the displeasures of her pasts, and would go into details, in retelling those times that's made her upset, of how someone some day, said something bad about her, how someone had, wronged her, who'd treated her bad…..the more she got into it the angrier she'd, turned and on how her dead husband had cheated on her, she would grow ever the more, emotional.
And, everybody would try and console with her, that she's more blessed than everybody else around her, to NOT let those things unworthy of her remembering, trouble her, and she'd, nodded and agreed, and yet, shortly after that, she'd started, recounting all the upsets of her, past days again, and everybody around her is at wit's end to try to get her to feel better, so, to the end, people who used to visit her often, stopped, visiting.
And now, looking at my aunt in her eighties, she's so passionate about her life, and, loved recalling how more than a decade ago, she'd gone with her group of friends to Europe on that self-help trip for over a month. Now she's elder, and traveled a whole lot, less in the long-distance flights, but she'd continued, traveling the shorter distances, told us, that this is how she made her, most, precious, memories. Being active in her community, she'd entered the line into the meal deliveries program of the local community, encouraged people around her, to accumulate the credits of helping in long-term care, so they can, use those credits later on as they may need to, to make sure that the community serves its function in keeping everyone in the neighborhood well.
or, basking in the miseries of your own loneliness of old age...photo from online
As for all those things that's upset her in the past, she'd told, that she had awful memories, she'd forgotten all of them now, believed, that the deterioration of the mind, and memory loss were actually, blessing to the old age, helping us, let go of the burdens of worrying. Loving poetry, my aunt had, become the, embodiment of the attitude described by the poet, Su, "happy living, returning back to innocence", such a, wise, woman she is!
The tracks of life, left two different, results, this is what our generations can, learn, from.
And so, the former woman, she'd only, focused on everything bad that's, happened to her, and maybe, it's because when she was younger, she'd felt, that nobody was there to lend her a helping ear, to hear her pour her heart out, to dump her emotional garbage, so she wouldn't, have such a heavy burden, and then, look at the woman the writer described as the second one, she's thankful, for everything she'd been, given, and, she carried that positive attitude to her own life, and, she's also, giving back to her communities, she's engaged in living, with tons of hobbies, which is what the first woman failed to carry, and WHO, would you want to become when you're, old and gray???
or you can be, happy alone too! With that hobby that keeps oneself, happy...photo from online
No comments:
Post a Comment