How do you NOT envy some younger people? (vacation, betray, relations)
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Perhaps how we look and feel about this stage of life or any stage is driven by was it planned or did it just happen. If we are where we are by plan and it turns out to have been a great plan realized, how can we not be happy?
It the challenges of it all have us not where we envisioned in our 20's we might have a different view of the world today.
I for one am just tickled with life today. I have lost a number of relatives, friends and former colleagues over the last couple of years. Does it remind me how fragile life is? Yes! Does it make me appreciate the lifestyle we have, knowing that we are facing our remaining years travelling a path I am often reminded in here we are blessed to have? Bada Bing!
Perhaps how we look and feel about this stage of life or any stage is driven by was it planned or did it just happen. If we are where we are by plan and it turns out to have been a great plan realized, how can we not be happy?
It the challenges of it all have us not where we envisioned in our 20's we might have a different view of the world today.
I for one am just tickled with life today. I have lost a number of relatives, friends and former colleagues over the last couple of years. Does it remind me how fragile life is? Yes! Does it make me appreciate the lifestyle we have, knowing that we are facing our remaining years travelling a path I am often reminded in here we are blessed to have? Bada Bing!
Old age didn't require any planning. It happened just as I expected.
For me, I'm tired. Just when I think I got it all worked out something else comes at me. My 84 yo uncle made me feel better, he said, you haven't seen nothing yet. Thank Unc!
Over 200 posts and here I am weighing in for the first time. I have read most, but not all, of this long thread so far. Philosophically, people about my age (I am 73 now) were brought up with the idea that the world was making constant, more or less uninterrupted progress, the idea that our lives were getting better and better. And it did seem to be true for a number of decades.
Progress in medicine and dentistry was very real. Here are two examples among hundreds that could be given: polio has been almost banished from the earth and scientific birth control has made it much easier to achieve reproductive freedom. Cars have become more reliable and safer (air bags); radial tires provide longer life and better traction than bias-belted tires. The jet age gave us planes that flew ever faster, and then the indredibly exiting space age arrived, allowing us to unlock many secrets of astronomy. A systematic system of racial discrimination in this country has been dismantled. The age of personal computers gave us instant access to huge amounts of information. In the political realm, the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 provided a tremendous sense of euphoria and there was real hope that the world would become a more rational place.
But there are signs that all this progress may not mean that our lives will continue to get better as time goes on. In fact I fear for the future that my nieces (in their early 30's) will have to face once I am gone.
It seems human nature resists all efforts to achieve better governance. Militant Islam has poisoned the world as badly as Soviet Communism did, although in rather different ways. And tyranny again raises its head in Russia in terms of threats to its neighbors (the take-over of parts of Ukraine has already occurred). Political correctness has curbed freedom of expression in ways that would have our founding fathers spinning in their graves. The creation of equal opportunity for the races has not ended an incredibly stubborn pattern of racial animosity. The serious consequences of global warming, whether it is man-made or not, are pretty frightening. We live in a horribly over-regulated society. And finally a scary rougue state, North Korea, has succeeded in making nuclear weapons.
All this by way of saying that I believe I lived (in a broad, general sense) in better times than the times which will follow me and that is one reason I do not envy young people. I feel sorry for them for what I think they will have to face.
So part of me wants to live to age 105 just out of curiostiy to see what is going to happen to this planet and to our species, but then again I could live that long and not have my marbles anymore in order to be aware of social, economic, and political trends.
Perhaps how we look and feel about this stage of life or any stage is driven by was it planned or did it just happen. If we are where we are by plan and it turns out to have been a great plan realized, how can we not be happy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Escort Rider
... I believe I lived (in a broad, general sense) in better times than the times which will follow me and that is one reason I do not envy young people. I feel sorry for them for what I think they will have to face.
I remain persuaded that human history on the whole moves in a favorable direction. Though earlier I noted that the heyday of my own profession has passed, that is only to be expected from the churning or “creative destruction” in technology and business. We keep discovering new concepts, finding new insights, and overall exploiting them more for good and abundance and justice, than for their opposites.
But this general optimism about most people in most circumstances, is for me juxtaposed with a personal pessimism and quiver of regrets. On the whole, I’m fairly pleased with the decisions and plans made before age 35 or so; thereafter, things went awry. And while life’s remainder need not be moribund or mired in decline, unlike most here, I’d rather see hastened the advance of old-age and its inevitable consequences, than to delay it.
So, it seems to me that upon beholding the young, we have two separate questions. The first is one of culture, epoch and outlook on history. Would we rather have been born when we actually were born, or later, or even in the future? In other words, is life better today, than in the past? The second question is, would I rather repeat the struggles (and opportunities) of young-adulthood, or do I find them overall to be more of a burden than an ecstasy?
We were taking the scenic route home from brunch today. We passed a house I remembered from a garage sale some months ago. A young couple had just finished their medical studies at Stanford and were selling all their books and household goods. They had jobs waiting for them back East. At the time I congratulated them on this exciting and milestone event but I remember feeling a little deflated inside. Their lives were just beginning and ours are about to end.
Do you ever feel this way?
Yes. Well, not envy. But wistful and wishing I could start over. How I would do things differently, if I could start over.
But that's romanticizing a stage of life. If you recall, there are some terrible times in those years. Money problems, being overworked, being fired or laid off, losing children, miscarriages, having to move away from family, spouse infidelity, divorce, coworker issues, problems with supervisors, competition at work, not having enough time. We all remember the good times and forget the problems.
We were taking the scenic route home from brunch today. We passed a house I remembered from a garage sale some months ago. A young couple had just finished their medical studies at Stanford and were selling all their books and household goods. They had jobs waiting for them back East. At the time I congratulated them on this exciting and milestone event but I remember feeling a little deflated inside. Their lives were just beginning and ours are about to end.
Do you ever feel this way?
No I don't. I would look at them and think, "Been there, done that." Wherever I have gone in my life and that includes right up to the present, I've started from the point at which I happened to be at the time and moved forward.
Feeling deflated or envying those who are starting from a place in life I had already been through would have never entered my mind. Just the opposite in fact, if I were to think about it at all, I would be thinking I was glad I didn't have to go through all that again.
Good post bpollen. Wistfullness, not envy. A pang of it, not an obsession with. No regrets, it is what it is. Glad I am where I am compared to the vast majority.
"desire to have a quality, possession, or other desirable attribute belonging to (someone else)."
It's not inherently 'bad' to want what someone else has. It doesn't mean that you don't want them to have it too. That would be jealousy.
Many of the attributes and possession I have today began with a desire to have what I saw around me. Someone with a lot of patience made me want to be that way too. Someone with a sailboat made me want a sailboat too. Someone who was compassionate made me want to be compassionate too......
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