Quite some time ago I was invited as a jury member to a children's literature contest. I was against this type of event because it seemed excessive to me to demand or evaluate some literary skills or considerations in children: after all, they were children; I preferred to promote spontaneous writing. As the intention of this event coincided with my vision, I accepted.

I was not yet in my forties and I had a certain kind of arrogance and stiffness in my personality, which I can see now. Also invited as a guest was a writer who would be in his seventies, just as I am now. He had not finished reading the stories so he took the opportunity to do so at that moment, prior to the meeting we would have to discuss the texts. What I want to say is that he had fun reading, he would stop reading to laugh; he was in the process: moved, excited, amused, depending on the nature of each story. That gentleman taught me a lesson that day, he was living in the moment. I never forgot that lesson.

I met older people with a different attitude: sullen, sad, cantankerous, I came to think that getting old was to be filled with these characteristics, but the road was showing me other characters in other elders that made me understand that it was a personal decision our behavior in old age.

Today, I keep the friendship of people over eighty years old, willing to interact, affectionate, smiling, active, happy. When I say that I don't want to be old, my friends laugh, because they know that I have been old for a long time, but also because they understand my feelings.

There is a type of older adult who constantly repeats that "every time in the past was better", and they extend themselves in long speeches against: technology, people of today, fashions, progress, music and more. While it is true that everything has its pros and cons, being so blunt about it only speaks of a lack of knowledge of important achievements of humanity that continue to occur every day.

Such constant criticism is quite annoying. These days, someone older than me refused to accept the news of an earthquake until he heard it on the radio or saw it on a newscast, because the networks lie a lot, he said. It is not false, there is a lot of that, but there are also serious people who handle themselves in the networks with rectitude and truthfulness.

Clinging to old beliefs offers a limitation for the constant work of our brain: there is still so much to learn and technology is a good source of great tutorials for any trade, as well as pages of universities that have good information in their virtual libraries.

There is a vast majority of young people who are prepared, studious, researching, creative, proactive, who are an example for others and from whom we can also learn. Life is an exchange of knowledge, I teach but I also learn from you and this dynamic is very beneficial to live active and independent lives at any age.

Assuming each day with gratitude and willingness to be well, despite everything, gives us the possibility to serve, to be a source of wisdom, to be there living in the present. I want to be a different old woman, that's why I keep actively searching for tasks that give me satisfaction and peace. I would love to know what you think about it.

Thank you for your kind reading.

My content is original.
I have used the translator DeepL

@charjaim