Posted by Helen on: 08.30.2006 /
Yesterday Rachel wrote (in comment #1 on A second response from Rev. Lueking):
I’ve noticed that people seem to go one of two ways as they get older - they get crotchety and more set in their ways or they get sweeter and more open to others.
What temperament changes have you noticed in yourself and others as you get older?
Comment by: jim
1 08/30/06 11:41 AM | Comment Link |I agree - I think we begin setting the direction for how we will be in our old age earlier in life. We choose to practice being interested in others (otherliness) we develop the habit of being curious about life/people/God.
I dont want my kids “working around my weirdness” when I am too old to notice that I am.
Maybe Rev Lueking could give us some tips on aging well
Comment by: Helen
2 08/30/06 11:54 AM | Comment Link |Jim wrote:
I expect he could - he seems to be an expert at it!
Comment by: NCxian
3 08/30/06 1:01 PM | Comment Link |I’ve noticed that people close to me have become what I call “more themselves” as they’ve gotten older. So my dad, for example, who has always been sort of reserved in public but is a cut-up in private, has become more and more gregarious. I think they become truer to what they really are, and care less about what other people think.
As for myself (at 47) I think I am getting less hard on myself. Instead of trying to fix everything that is “wrong” about me by working at things that I find hard to do, I am willing to say, well, that job is just not me, I’ll choose something better suited. Maybe I am becoming more myself by becoming lazy!
Comment by: jim
4 08/30/06 1:40 PM | Comment Link |Reminds me of Homer Simpson quote
” Trying is the first step toward failure”
Comment by: Julie Marie
5 08/31/06 5:32 AM | Comment Link |I’ve taken care of quite a few elderly people and I’d agree, as we age we tend to become more of what we are.
An interesting phenomenon I’ve notice though, twice (with both of my parents) is that when faced with their mortality, it was almost as though the outer shell cracked and fell away….the hard edges, the difficult to work around attitudes…blew away, and what was left is what I would consider their essential being…which in both cases was heartbreakingly sweet. I saw it in my mom’s fight with cancer, and I’m seeing it now in my dad’s fight to recover from surgical complications.
Its a hard thing to see your parents vulnerable.