Have you ever noticed how often old people are either the kindest most pleasant people you know, or the most bitter, rude, and miserable?
Most young or middle aged adults may lean one way or another, but are generally seen as being somewhere in the middle. At the end of life though, we often seem to go all in one way. Good or bad. Serving the community, and being a source of comfort and love, or yelling at kids to get off the lawn, and asking for the manager.
While one could blame this on life circumstances. I think this phenomenon has more to do with the person than it does to their environment. In fact, I believe this general outcome of character stems almost entirely from a lifetime of choices and habits. Life will certainly throw bad things our way, and some people have it harder than others, but how we choose to face life matters. Think about it. The elderly have either spent a lifetime choosing healthy relationships, showing kindness to others, living in the moment, and drinking from a glass that is usually pretty full. Or they’ve withdrawn from others, they’ve been selfish, distracted, and their glass is rarely full enough.
Like it or not, our choices are transforming us into either people of light and love, or people plagued by darkness and hatred, and it’s up to you to decide what kind of old person you want to become.
While that may seem silly on its surface, it’s really what our entire life has been building towards. It’s multiple moments all compiled together until you get the end result. The consequence of your actions. The final you. The person you have worked your whole life toward becoming. The sweetheart or the grump.
If you don’t see the importance of working toward being the sweetheart, then I’m not really sure if I can help you. But for most of us I believe it’s something we can all understand as the goal on some innate level. After all, our hearts melt when we witness kindness, we root for the hero in a movie, and are drawn to people who feel like sunshine. We yearn for the good. Sometimes we’re just too lazy, or too selfish to put in the work of being like those people. We choose to focus on things that don’t really matter, and our souls suffer because of it.
Bitter people have their priorities all wrong. They value success, status, comfort, and material things a little too much. So they choose habits that reflect those values. They become workaholics, and sacrifice time with loved ones. Or they mooch and let others suffer so they don’t have to. They are less inclined to service because sacrifice is too hard, and takes away from comfort. Or because time is money, and money is their greatest love. If you want to know what’s really important to you ask yourself what you spend the most time doing and thinking about. Are you spending too much time thinking about money? Are you too distracted by your phone? Gossip? Making yourself look and feel good? Or does your mind drift toward the people you love? How you could have treated someone better? Do you sacrifice your time to help people when they are in need? In short: The sweetheart values people, and the grump values self.
The most wild part is the old people around us are proof that a life of living selfishly does not even bring about real happiness. Living life for you makes you feel worse, not better. The sweethearts are the ones who are happy in the end. The grumps are angry and unfulfilled. At funerals people are remembered for their kindness and love, not their success and status. Ironically, the dead who honored their own needs over others are looked on less favorably than those who honored others over themselves. So who really has the status in the end?
The grump is also lonely. A person who puts their own desires at the center of their life tends to not have real relationships. Solitude is an essential part of self-reflection, but having a community of not just family, but friends who are different than us, opens the heart. We need community. Other people make us better.
So how do we avoid becoming the old grump? We develop good habits. We shift our minds toward loving our neighbor, even when it’s hard to do. We make friends with all kinds of people, and learn to appreciate differences. We choose to see the best in people. We reflect on our actions, and surround ourselves with people who encourage us to become more loving. We decide to have a good day. We stop and smell the roses. We show up present and engaged; and when we fail we try again.
-Courtney