Amazing advice from the elderly
- Stop worrying so much.
- In relationships, sweat the small stuff.
- Don’t sacrifice your relationship for your children.
- People who share core values typically have better marriages.
- Communicate early, communicate often.
- Approach marriage as a discipline.
- Take time to craft the story of your life.
It’s so critical for older people to record their memories. I think that we place young people in peril without these kind of intergenerational contacts. This is something that’s so natural for the human race. It’s really only been about the last hundred years that people have gone to anyone other than the oldest person they knew for advice about something, say like marriage or childrearing.
Even though it sounds artificial, it’s important for older people to record their own thoughts and memories, but it’s really critical for younger people to ask them for them, and not just for stories, but for guidance and practical advice for living. I’m not against professional help. I think it’s great. But sometimes people might go and ask the elders in their lives for advice on finding a meaningful career or improving a relationship first.
So I think that it’s both older people doing it themselves, nurturing these memories and reflecting on their lives, but it’s also our role as younger people to help them to do it, to express interest in it and be a part of their reminiscing and summing up their life into a meaningful story. That’s what we really risk losing now.
