For some, growing old means being a shell of what you used to be. For some, growing old is a nightmare. And growing old doesn’t just happen to old people. It happens to all of us.
I can’t count how many times I’ve seen what Generation Alpha is up to and feel like the apocalypse is coming faster than Max Verstappen finishing a race. And I also have been in situations when I was younger where I’m told by my elders to not complain so much as they metaphorically have to climb mountains of steel to get to school while piggybacking 2 sacks worth of rice and other goods.
Granted, I am still in my youth and have a lot to experience. But if my frustration regarding the younger generation is so prevalent, can you imagine what an 80-years old with nothing left in them feels like? Many of them are angry because things are switching up and they cannot navigate their way through it. Which bring me to my next point, the innate and very much human fear of change.
According to a conference paper done by two South African researches regarding the reaction towards organizational change found that in order to have a successful organizational change, leaders must help the individual to be free out of their anxiety from the uncertainty brought by the change (Blom & Viljoen, 2016). Moreover, as stated in the conclusion, “People need meaning.”
People hate change. Some are blessed with a quick hand to shake a different frontier but most are slow embrace. The reasoning behind are also mostly subjective preferences. Ask your grandfather to listen to Fancy by Twice and look how he at the very least will frown upon your music taste.
To level the ground, I’m throwing this hypothetical question to younger generations. After all, this article is not just about old people. Ask your Gen Alpha sibling to listen to Stars of the Midnight Ranger by Johnny Bond and witness how they would switch to TikTok in a second. Of course, it doesn’t apply to all people but, generally it does.
Change is like a game of poker. You have to play your cards right. And when you don’t try to be careful in making people understand how their life wouldn’t be miserable because of change and forgetting one of the most common traits of humans is their stubbornness, chaos will erupt due to force modification and unpreparedness for the new wave of life. Just ask Japan how the Samurais were eradicated.
And then meaning. I could quote a dozen people that has their own little definition of the meaning of life. I could point out even more novels that tries to explain the meaning of life. But whatever the case is, your life needs meaning. As Kierkegaard wrote in his book Fear and Trembling, everybody needs a passion.
That passion, which is the most genuine thing in a one’s life, could be the meaning. But when that passion’s flare went out, sometimes too fast, and the body could not support the spirit that required much to be done, you are left with bitterness, anger, and eventually emptiness.
People that have no meaning in their life, or had meaning once, becomes angry at the passion that the new have to offer. They spit on it not just because of hate but jealousy! I could’ve done that or I could be this, a lot of could but always undone. They imagine what they could’ve done when they still had the chance but alas, it is just an imagination.
Despite all that, I have to reassure that growing old does not equal falling into a pit of despair. In Cattel’s theory of intelligence, Fluid Intelligence which correlates with openness to new ideas, will naturally decrease as we age.
