Positive View of Old Age
- Posted by e2 on 06.23.09
- Tags Family Changes, Modern Family, The Evolving Family
- No Comments »
A friend of Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman asked: “How do you feel being 90?” He answered: “Very surprised!” No one in his family has reached this age. He thanks God for this milestone, but realize that from now on, he must count his future years in single digits. This thought does not depress him, nor does death frighten him.
Does age have compensations in those so-called “Harvest Years?” What are those compensations? Like Joshua, who rendered a positive report about the Promised Land, Haberman has some favorable things to say about this final phase of life. When he first Robert Browning’s line, “Grow old with me . . . the best is yet to be,” he questioned it as poetic license. Now, more than 20 years since his retirement at age 67, he has come to recognize six reasons to justify Robert Browning’s positive view of old age.
First is the gain of tranquility. All the important decisions have been made in earlier years. He has wrestled with his vocational choice, searched for a suitable spouse, created a home, raised children, established himself in his career and have no more need to prove himself. He has walked the walk, had his failures and successes. All the pressures have eased. He is more relaxed than ever. He take his afternoon naps; and, what a joy to find on his calendar empty pages with nothing to do.
second gain was defined by Plato more than two millennia ago: The cooling of passion. You might call it the doctrine of insignificance. If a matter is not truly significant or important, don’t fret, don’t worry, and don’t get yourself worked up. Ignore it! We get less frantic, less pushy in advanced age. He quoted Sean O’Casey wrote in his eighties: “One likes to sit back and let the world turn by itself without trying to push it.” Age does not render us indifferent to the world’s problems, to the ills of society, to the suffering and unhappiness of people around us. But the experience of a long life teaches us that not all problems can be solved; and certainly, not by ourselves. Some of our intimately personal problems have no solution. All we can and must do is endure, which we are better able to do in old age than in our younger years.
The third gain that comes with old age is what he call ‘the art of submission.’ Similar to the poetess Anne Marx learned it when undergoing cancer treatment: “The force beyond,” she wrote, “was now in charge of my fate. I have become a submitter.” There are passages in life you cannot control. You must submit, let go, accept the unalterable. If you cannot change a health, family or financial problem; change your attitude. Stop fighting. Accept what must be; and strangely, this kind of surrender to the unchangeable is conducive to peace of mind.
The fourth gift harvested in old age is liberation from the compulsion or urge of setting everyone else straight. He is no longer looking to win every argument. The intensity of your conviction is no proof that you are right. More often than before, it occurs to me that I might be wrong, that he doesn’t have all the answers. He have learned to listen more and talk less. He is less dismissive of opinions he disagree with, more willing to consider the merits of the other side. He say it marks a growth, however modest, of humility.
The fifth dividend of old age is greater appreciation and gratitude.HeI have become more attentive to old and new friends. More often than before he keep in touch with old friends and reach out to new, especially, younger people. And, at his age, that means just about everyone else. He take to heart Samuel Johnson’s remark at 75: “I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.” In response to all the bad news in the world, he make a deliberate effort to be thankful for small favors, the courteous driver, the bank teller’s cheerful greeting, the mail carrier’s conscientiousness, the kindness of good neighbors, and my doctor’s unfailingly prompt response to his call. He have discovered the truth of the opening words of Psalm 92: “It is good to give thanks.” Giving thanks is the most effective and harmless mood-changer – the best antidote to cynicism and pessimism. Earlier in life, with many years to look forward to, he felt like a millionaire in time, freely spending and wasting it. Now, that his supply of time has shrunk, he appreciate far more each day, each hour, every bit of new knowledge and every moment with people he care for.
The sixth and most important gain is more involvement with three generations of his family –children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Best of all is his love affair with a married woman – Maxine, his wife; and, his severest critic and yet, unfailing support in almost sixty-five years of marriage. What a blessing to be together each day. He say of Maxine, as did Akiba about his beloved Rachel: “mah ani, shelah” – “Whatever I am, I owe to her.”
