How Are You Changed?

People change.  That’s good—if it’s for the better.  Hopefully it is, though not always. 

We may think that we do not like change, especially as we get older.  Indeed, the older I get the more I like routine and predictability.  It makes negotiating through life much easier.  Yet, change is constant.  It should also be so with us.

Change is the norm for the young and so they adapt easily enough.  The older have a harder time of it.  And that’s why they resist it.  However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a study somewhere that shows that the elderly do much better (emotionally, psychologically, physically) when they embrace and “go with the flow” of change rather than fight and resist it.

What we elderly types need to realize is that even though we’re older, we still need to develop, change, and grow—internally.  We can always be better people, become wiser, kinder, more patient, or whatever.  When an older person gets to the point where he or she thinks: “I’ve arrived.  I no longer need to learn.  I no longer need to question my assumptions or test my conclusions; I know what I know and that’s final,” he or she is in trouble and/or will cause a lot of trouble.

It’s funny; many teenagers think the same way (I know what I know…).  Is it possible that the elderly can enter into a second teen life mentally and attitudinally—as in for example: “The world should revolve around me, I know (it all), don’t tell me what to do; it’s my life!”  I suppose it is.  Or perhaps it’s that some of us never grow out of that stage in life.

The fact is that over the years I have met some very wise, malleable and mature teens in my life.  I say “malleable” because they grow and develop by remaining flexible and adaptable, adjusting their perceptions and conclusions as they learn, remaining open to new insights and perspectives.  Wise and mature adults, no matter how old they get, never lose this trait.  This is the kind of change that one should always welcome and embrace in one’s self.

It is not accepting change for the sake of change itself.  It is learning to adjust to a changing world, an ability to adapt to changing circumstances, a willingness to accept new information and insight and to embrace their consequences with the necessary alterations to one’s mental habits and predilections—which is not easily done the older we get, but still necessary if we are to continue on the pathway of growth and maturity.

In our youth oriented society, though, the real challenge is learning how to keep the generations connected with each other so that we journey life together, as opposed to one generation dismissing the other as irrelevant and unnecessary to its own age group.