My Generation: Get on the Bus

Since I reached my fiftieth year, I have noticed a phenomenon happening among my peers regarding their attitude towards the world as it is today.  I have decided that people in my age range can be divided into two distinct categories: those who embrace the future and those whose minds remain convinced that life was better "back then".

Each group demonstrates its attitude towards the contemporary world through a variety of behaviors.  The Futurists, as I've named them, accept that the world is changing. Admittedly, Furturists may face contemporary challenges with some trepidation and caution, but they are optimistic in their assumptions about the outcomes.  They recognize that the ways of the past were a response to the circumstances and knowledge base of the past. More importantly, they are willing, and wanting, to use this current knowledge base and circumstances to find solutions to their life challenges.

On the other hand, the Pastets remain convinced that the strategies of the past are perfectly capable of solving contemporary problems.  Pastets consider that since earlier methods worked well enough before they will work well enough again.  They are resistant to accepting the changes in our world.  These folks are not technological Luddites; they are on Face Book and Twitter, they have satellite television and cell phones.  Pastets resist the possibility that the new ways might be better and insist that the old methods will solve the new problems, (if there are any problems, which there aren't because the old ways fixed all of that).  It was good enough then and it is good enough now.

When my grandmother died most of her friends had already passed away.  Those who attended her funeral were primarily my mother's friends.  My grandmother had witnessed most, if not all, of her friends dying before her.  My mother vowed that this would not happen to her.  She was determined to make friends with women who were ten to twenty years her junior so that she would still have friends by her side when it was her time to go.  I witnessed the joy it gave her to make younger people a part of her life.   It revitalized her and broadened her perspective of the world. In the end, my mother died before many of her peers.  Her old and new friends were there to share in her last days.  It gave her comfort to know that her younger friends had more life to live and was happy that she was able to share a part of their lives.

I hope that my Pastet peers will get on the bus with us Futurists and embrace what is coming before us.  I don't want to hear you lament the old days and long for the days of the past.  Our life is ahead of us, we already did the past, it's over.  It's inevitable that you're going to have to come along.  Get on the bus, don't make the rest of us drag you on board.  We want to use our energy to enjoy the vistas that are just around the bend.