The Summer of my Discontent...Growing Older

The summer of 2012 has been the summer of my discontent. I don’t take to change well, and there has been lots of change. Some was by choice, but most was life just happening. My mother-in-law passed away a few weeks ago after a rather lengthy illness. Those of you who know me also know we didn’t get along that well, but she was very sick and no one wishes that on another human being.

I have been to a lot of funerals this summer. Several of my relatives died unexpectedly in addition to several of my friends and clients….not a good summer. Those who are wiser than me told me it is a function of my age. I am 62 going on 63. I hear people my age referred to on television as “seniors” and “older.” I don’t feel I am either of those except when I go for the 20% Tuesday night discount at the Perkins. Hey…a buck’s a buck!!!!

But where I have felt my age is in coping with daily life. The world has changed. I have done my best to change with it. I have succeeded in some things, and failed miserably in others. One of the quirks of my current situation is I am involved in lots of organizations run by people who 20 years younger than me. It has motivated me to keep up with things. In the techno world, I give myself a grade of B-. I am computer savvy. I can do some basic HTML. I run my website. I have a smartphone, albeit a Blackberry which is now so déclassé, and use blue-tooth to connect my car to my phone and my tunes which are downloaded onto my phone….hundreds and hundreds of tunes!!!

I am still intimidated by smart televisions, although I have one and I can fumble through its operation. I hate using my DVD player which I am told I don’t need anymore because of my smart television. GPS systems are beyond me.  Get me a map. Later this fall I am upgrading my Blackberry phone to a droid and also will be getting a computer tablet when the dust settles from this year’s fall technological upgrades!

I was a little disturbed with the introduction of the new I-phone. I read that its connectors have changed making use of existing Apple compatible docks difficult. Add to that an article in this week’s Business Week saying that Apple’s lightening connector will now make all existing connectors passé…what’s a body to do? That’s why I have eschewed Apple products. They are the best on the market, but I don’t want my life tied to a company whose products are so closed to the rest of the world that you become trapped in the late Steve Jobs’ universe.

I have been less successful in coping with the changes in social interactions spawned by the digital age. America has always had a penchant to celebrate youth and throw out the aging with the bath water. That seems to have intensified. People under 45 years of age have lost a degree of basic respect for most everyone let alone folks that are a tad older than them. I was raised to always have respect for my elders. Even at 60 plus years old I still call people my parents’ age “Mr. and Mrs.” if they are still living and I see them out. I did some work for the father of some guys with whom I went to high school and it was still Mr. Jones up until the day he died this past summer. He was a great man, and he earned my respect.

Now the forty, thirty and especially the twenty somethings would just as soon tell you to go to hell as look at you. Social graces and basic civil interactions are shrinking away to non-existence. I sat through a meeting the other night that was appalling. A good and decent human being close to my age was treated badly by a bunch of “young turks” who didn’t like…I don’t know what…his style? It was disheartening and depressing and just plain mean. I would have walked out. He had enough class not to. I had an occasion to meet with some of these guys the following day to take care of some organization business. I made my feelings known. Last week I would have kept my mouth shut. I won’t anymore.

One of the advantages of getting older is that one doesn’t care as much and feels freer to say what one thinks. I intend to say what I think from now on. I may have to learn technological skills in order to function in the modern world; but mostly those skills will allow me to keep up with those coming up behind me who may or may not have a degree of civility for those who grew up in a kinder and gentler period in our history.

Now I have choices. I can tell them to go to hell in a blog, in an email, on a cell phone, on twitter, on Facebook, or in a text!!!   And for that...I am grateful!!!