People are prone to opinions, but like the pigs in the famous satiric book about society, Animal Farm, some people are more entitled to their opinions than others. For example, people of a certain age, like me.
We are Boomers, people who’ve lived at least 50-60 years, through the ebb-and-flow of incidents, accidents, and tasks of earning a living. We’ve spent and saved and now have a nest egg – and a platform that is well-earned.
We Boomers collectively cringe when history repeats itself, proving that humanity as a whole doesn’t learn, certain that we did… Did you?
Sometimes I worry about myself, but more often I worry about the angry elders who take out their rage for being old, weary, and less accomplished than they’d like, howitzering everyone and everything around them. Terse, grim tone-of-voice and look-of-face.
These people embarrass me. Wasn’t our generation of youths a fosterer of radical change? Didn’t we mutually ascribe to the notion that – if you are not part of the solution, you were part of the problem? Opinionators never offer solutions. We Boomers are failing ourselves, our search for promise in the promised land, when we feel entitled to sit back and gripe.
Perhaps, the automation of household chores – and our propensity to hire all tasks out, so that we no longer mow the lawn, shuck the corn, or climb a ladder to wash windows, let alone screens in no-bug California – is the root cause. We jump at the chance for others to clean our clothes, deliver pre-measured foods to our doorstep, and make the beds. Left with nothing to do but twiddle our thumbs dumbly and watch TV on 24/7channels that prompt us to cede thought and groom us to despise, to vent, to expound.
Have we forgotten “Let’s work together?”
And, “if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
Yesterday was my father’s birthday and today my husband’s mother’s. We feel they would have approved this message. My grandma, too.
Your words are awesome PJ! I shelled peas with my Grandma on my visits to Ohio. I learned to fish there and always bait my own hook(even tho’ it’s been awhile) and have actually used leeches. I remember a time when there were 5 stations and they had sign offs and played the National Anthem. I know personally I sleep so much better on a night that I actually accomplished something during the day rather than have someone do it for me. John and I are just past the Boomer age but identify with many of those values as we were raised in homes with older siblings who are Boomers.
the Midwest is a great place to be born and raised, to visit and spend time. Values and a sense of productive dedication to those values. So good
PJ, oddly enough, I don’t feel I know any of those old people who gripe. Maybe I’m the only one doing it, from time to time. Most people my age are pretty upbeat and I like to think I am the same. I’m also happy to say I don’t share the aches and pains that many around me complain about. My breathing is not so hot but I’m thankful my joints are still pretty well oiled.
So all in all, I don’t feel that our generation has failed to keep up its radical beliefs, we’ve just separated what those radical beliefs are and grouse at anyone who disagrees with us in a pretty vocal way.
Where do you live, Michele, and may we switch out friends? 😉
You know, I think you’ve figured something out… and shown it to me. I do believe that the crankiness comes because these people are in constant pain. Physical and/or emotional, I gotta admit that would wear down my smile and gnaw at my attitude, too
Thanks for sharing!