Category: The good news (Page 3 of 11)

Sand in the Vaseline

06/19/2018 /

As we age, we’re supposed to grow wiser.  That’s what we always heard would be the reward, that we would know more, have more experiences to draw from, and maybe even have more patience with the little things because we’d seen it all.  So in theory, we would not get as upset about things or at least, we would let the little things upset us as much.

That’s the theory.  I’m still waiting on that to kick in.

Granted, there are a lot of things I don’t worry about anymore, which is a very good thing.  I attempt an acceptable level of hygiene, but I don’t get too wound up about a wrinkled pair of jeans or the different shades of skin that cover my legs.  I actually have moments in the car when the tailgating hot rod behind me doesn’t send me into fits of bad language.  I can let it go when I have to step over a present a neighbor’s pet left for me.  Okay.  That’s all quite evolved.

But I’m finding that other things really are like sand in the vaseline.  Irritants that my soul just can’t abide.  And maybe surprisingly, it’s directed quite often at other baby boomers and beyond. Because surely they should know better!

For example, I don’t understand:

• How can you still think you are better than someone else, just because you happen to be born a certain color?

• How can you still make inappropriate jokes that demean other human beings?  Or let your friends do the same and not say something?

• How can it be okay with you to attend church each Sunday and then give your allegiance to a politician who advocates lies, sexual misconduct, hatred, greed and disregard for people whose profession is checking on the government and reporting the truth back to the people?

• How can you visit a beautiful, pristine wilderness area and toss your garbage out the car window, leave your campfire smoldering in a fire danger zone, blast your iPod on trail, and honk at a fawn that isn’t crossing the road fast enough for you?

• How can you think cheating someone else is okay, whether it’s through cheap tipping, cutting them off in line, or not letting them into your club/neighborhood/place of worship/swimming pool?

I just don’t understand.  We’re older.  We’ve lived. We’ve been hurt.  We’ve learned how hard life can be sometimes.  How fragile we all are, and how we have no idea if the person next to us is dealing with a disease, a major loss, fears or worse.  And since we don’t know, we should know by now to err on the side of kindness.

Because we know how easily that person could be us.

These things irritate me, I admit it.  Which I don’t think is a bad thing, because the day they stop bothering me, i will know that I have really checked out on the world.

I know there are those who will say well it doesn’t really matter, as long as you don’t actually hurt someone, you can do or say what you please.  I disagree.  I think you are hurting someone.  I believe that principle that the ripple of a butterfly’s wings really does eventually reach the rainforest.

And I think we who are showing some gray have a responsibility to add some gentility to the universe.  Not just for each other, but for ourselves as well.  According to Random Acts of Kindness:

“Witnessing acts of kindness produces oxytocin, occasionally referred to as the ‘love hormone’ which aids in lowering blood pressure and improving our overall heart-health. Oxytocin also increases our self-esteem and optimism, which is extra helpful when we’re in anxious or shy in a social situation….According to research from Emory University, when you are kind to another person, your brain’s pleasure and reward centers light up, as if you were the recipient of the good deed—not the giver. This phenomenon is called the “helper’s high….  Like most medical antidepressants, kindness stimulates the production of serotonin. This feel-good chemical heals your wounds, calms you down, and makes you happy!”

 

Of course the irony is that I’m getting irritated at how hateful other people are.  So I need to chill, right?  Like I said, I’m trying.  But I’m also hoping maybe others will stop a minute to think about the impact they are having on younger people. The example they are setting for their grandchildren.  And how they are affecting their own health.

Wisdom is a gift.  Let’s use it for the greater good.  And maybe all of us can see in each other a soul that has walked a journey we can’t imagine, but we can respect.

Life is short.

And maybe if we stop clenching our fists and holding on so tight, we can receive even more.  It’s way past time to worry about what the “other guy” is getting that we didn’t.  That’s kinda what progress is all about it, right?  That the next generation has it a bit easier?  And for sure, that next generation isn’t going to look exactly like us.  I’m all for that.

Just some things to think about.  I’m going to work harder myself, especially when the internet goes out again.

Breathe.  Just breathe.  It’s worked before.  I have a lot of practice at it.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

       Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping your cool.

05/31/2018 /

First, it’s hot.  Just plain hot. Too hot. 

I know it depends on where you live, but chances are, you’re already sweating more than you’d like by now.  And it’s only the first few days of June.  Egads.

Second, it’s harder for us over 50 when it gets this hot.  We tend not to realize we are thirsty as soon as those who are younger, so we have to keep a water bottle with us and drink from it all day long.  Really.  Sip it every few minutes and you might keep from getting dehydrated or at least a blinding headache.  The heat also just makes you feel weak and listless.  You run out of gas halfway through a task (and this is when you are inside, usually in air conditioning).

Listen to your body.  Rest.  Get cool.  Wait until dusk to cut the grass or clean out the trunk of your car.  it’s just not worth it.

But even more than the seasonal heat, everything seems hotter right now.  The air is filled with hateful tweets.  Angry vices take over the news.  Irritating political commercials make outlandish claims and force us to listen to people we would never give the time of day to if we sat next to them at the office.  It all makes you want to find a shady place by a mountain stream and put your bare feet in the water, close your eyes and just feel that gift of peace.

You can’t make people stop spreading their heated words.  But you can turn down their volume.  Or better yet, hit the mute button.

Turn the channel.

Don’t read the angry Facebook post.

Delete the email with the doctored photos.

Walk away from the person who wants to tell you the racist joke, since it seems to all be “okay” these days to mimic very, very very behavior set by those in power.

Turn away.  

Instead, breathe some cool air.  Have some iced green tea.  Listen to your favorite sonata.  Sit with a grandchild in the grass and string together some clover.  Buy a popsicle and sit on your front porch and enjoy it.  Watch the lightning bugs at night.

Take back your summer.  Take it where you want it to go.

Let them rave.  You’ve heard it all before.  Hot air doesn’t last long.  Heated words blow back on those who choose to spread hateful messages.  You know better.

Put down the phone.  You won’t miss anything important.  And you might create some wonderful open moments for other things to happen.

You carry your treasure within.  Let yourself enjoy it.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

      Ralph Waldo Emerson

Retiring or rethinking?

02/26/2018 /

Now that you’re getting closer to retirement, or you’ve long since retired, you’ve probably faced the decision about whether you want to work longer, work part-time, try something new, or run as far as you can from anything resembling employment.  Some are more fortunate than others in this regard, and some just aren’t sure.

It’s frustrating to work hard all your life and have in the back of your mind that soon you’ll be taking it easy…at least not punching a clock every day…and then economics change that scenario.  Life is just expensive, no matter whether you stay in your same home, or you dream of moving to a new home by the  ocean or in mountains.  You may have been a saver, but you probably still wish you’d started earlier and saved more.  Or, you could  be like so many people, and only just now have the ability to save anything at all.

It’s the dilemma of the day and it’s only going to get worse. Baby boomers are living longer than previous generations and retiring later. About three in every four Americans plan to work past retirement age and almost two-thirds said they will continue to work part-time. About 10,000  turn 65 each day, yet fewer than half said they expect to retire by 65.

People are working later in life for a number of reasons. They are healthier and have a longer life expectancy than previous generations. They are better educated, which increases their likelihood of staying in the labor force. And changes to Social Security benefits and employee retirement plans, along with the need to save more for retirement, create incentives to keep working.

And whether you want to keep working, or have to, you might be thinking about a change. Maybe even working for yourself.  Data from Bureau of Labor Statistics shows hat workers in older age groups have higher rates of self-employment than do workers in younger groups. Knowledge and resources gained through years of experience may put older workers in a good position to work for themselves. (Just remember this comes with its challenges as well…do your homework!)

Or maybe you’ve spent your career in an office and would love to get into the outdoors. Or perhaps you’re retiring a  teacher and prefer giving tours of a local museum.

Then there are the challenges that come with being over 60 and wanting to be taken seriously by younger co-workers.  Society is prone to dismiss us. Younger workers often don’t even “see”  us, much less take our ideas and expertise seriously.  It often leads to baby boomers doubting themselves, wondering if they are really out of touch and have anything valuable to contribute.

Yet the good news is science is on our side.

Research shows successful older people manage to use their brains differently, and by doing so are doing just as well as younger people. One interpretation is that we boomers and beyond have a larger set of knowledge and thus we can rely on our experience when processing new information.  We use our experience as “filters,” dismissing some new information, but working more efficiently with the information we have and ultimately doing just as well as younger people with more powerful brains.

So, while the young person in the next desk can  run faster, you know the shortcuts…so you might reach the finish line just as fast.

Bottom line?  We aren’t doing things wrong, we are doing them differently. And even better…we score better in social conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability than do younger people.  This is probably not news to you. Take the cell phone away from some young people and they lose the ability to communicate.  BUT…you better be up on the technology you  need to stay in the game.

So don’t let the headlines scare you…remember you  are a reserve of knowledge, experience and sound common sense earned over a lifetime.

You have value.

Now get out there and rock it!

 

“It’s never too late to do something extraordinary.”

            Anonymous

Good News is Hard to Find.

01/30/2018 /

Have you seen “The Post”?  If not, please go as soon as you can.  Encourage everyone you know to go.  Find younger people and tell them they must go or they will be audited by the IRS.  (It might work.)

Why is this movie so important?

Because nothing is more important than the truth, and nothing has come under more attack in the last year.  The passion and convictions of those who dedicate their lives to journalism are vital to our freedom.  Freedom of the press has been a fundamental pillar of the American society since its very beginning.  The founding fathers knew it.  The framers of the Constitution made sure it was included.  Men and women have died over our rights to know what is really going on in our government.

It is in our DNA.  It is who we are.  And anyone—ANYONE—who does not understand this has no business holding public office.

But alas, many people chose reality TV instead, and that’s a mess that will take a few elections to clean up.

Meanwhile, consider the late Ben Bradlee,  a great journalist and former executive editor of The Washington Post.  He’s a central figure in The Post, which revolves around the publishing of The Pentagon Papers, when our government was lying to us about The Vietnam War.  He also was a central figure in the Watergate scandal, when our government was lying to us about just about everything.  I can only imagine what he would say if he were alive today.

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Or Edward R. Murrow of CBS, who had the courage and stamina to continue to shine the light on Joseph McCarthy and his bag of lies…lies which destroyed the careers and lives of so many innocent people.  People who actually had read the Constitution.

Imagine them today, having to read and hear what spews from the government…having to be insulted on a regular basis…having their questions dismissed or answered with a sneer…it staggers the mind.

I’m a baby boomer and I studied journalism in college, from at least a few teachers who were former newspapermen. They took a no-nonsense approach to the sacred nature of news. The tenets of journalism. (Yes, there really are tenets of journalism, though these days entire networks seem unaware of this.) My teachers taught us how to ask questions, write a news story, edit wire copy, and lay out pages. It was hard, but it was also rewarding and even fun (at least to me) because you got the sense of how important it was to get the facts—and the story—right.

You understood that if you worked in journalism, you had an obligation to the truth, to the audience, and to the greats who had gone before you.

We did all this on typewriters (non-correcting typewriters). One of my professors enjoyed giving us all the details of a story and then leaving the room, giving us about 15 minutes to write it. Then, just as the class was almost over, he would reappear and update the facts by changing a major detail, which of course meant you ripped the paper out of the typewriter and started rewriting as fast as you could to beat the bell. Many grumbled; some just dropped the class. I loved it. He knew what he was doing. Another professor would read my story and if it didn’t measure up to his standards, he’d rip it down the middle and hand it back to me, without a word.  I learned how to write better first drafts.

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I think of the Mary Tyler Moore episode when Mary and Rhoda have been sitting up late updating the station’s obituaries. They get punchy and write a funny obit for a local citizen who is over 100. Unfortunately, the next day that person actually dies and their fake obit is read on the air. Mary is horrified, and crushed when her boss Lou suspends her. He says simply, “Mary, the news is sacred.”

I agree. It’s why it’s hard for me to watch what is happening these days.  Or see how social media posts a half-truth which is repeated so often that it starts being quoted as a news story.

Whatever happened to three sources on a story before publication?

And frankly, whatever happened to questioning things…taking a moment to realize something doesn’t smell right with what you just read on Twitter or Facebook…actually reading more than one news source to get the information…and recognizing the difference between an article and an editorial?

I have to believe there are enough people out there who value the truth, and who can recognize it.  Remember, everyone thought the emperor looked great in his new clothes.  Except for one honest boy.

And he saw the naked truth.

 

“You never monkey with the truth.”

Ben Bradlee

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