The myth of grumpy oldies

Does aging make you grumpy? Pause and think about it. Think of all the older people (past middle age) you know and see whether they really come up to the stereotype of being irritable or just full of negativity. Most likely, you will realize that on the contrary, older people are generally calmer, emotionally on more even keel, and full of hope.

My father has always described me as “tanding” (old) as early as when I was 2 years old. It was because he claims that I was born interested in more mature stuff. I know that whenever we had guests and was asked to go to my room because they were having “usap ng matatanda” (matters for older people), I would leave my door ajar. I would eavesdrop on their conversations because for the most part, I was intrigued by what inherent virtue older people had that made them powerful over children. For the minor part, I just did not want to sleep and miss out on anything exciting that life had to offer like late night chocolate.  But I have always been intrigued and admired the state of life that aging generally brings humans to.

I listened to the recent NPR podcast that had the founding director of the Longevity Center of Stanford, Laura Carstensen, say something about longevity that was not mainly about curing “aging” as a disease. She said that older people are just more positive – not because age makes you mentally impaired but that is a reaction to not having the burden of the future anymore – a burden that the youth sport with much fervor.

Carstensen and her colleagues are credited for having tracked the attitudinal differences of people aged 18-94 and published their results in 2010. They followed them for a period of 12 years asking them questions as to how they were feeling about their lives at certain times. There were studies even before and after that study and they all yielded a correlation between aging and having a sunny outlook.

She thinks it is because older people, after middle-age, become very conscious of time left and that changes their perception of life. They no longer, as they say, sweat the small stuff, which really turn out to be mostly small stuff. She also said that from her study, the mentally sharper adults turned out to have the more positive outlook, which proves that older people do NOT have brains that have become goo that can only accommodate happy thoughts.

Later in life, I too married an older man, and my close friends are mostly much older than I am. I am just much more at home with them. Because of them, I have a clear view of what the later years would be and I folded those nuggets into the batter of my own youthful years. Some staunch critics of my “preference” say that I may have missed out on childhood. They may be right but I don’t think I was ever conscious of people’s ages when I connect with them; i.e., I do not ask them their age and make it a requirement for friendship. It just so happens that I just am happier and more interested in people who had more meaningful stories to tell, who were not driven in the same way that younger people are. And these happen to be mostly older people.

Young people are into making things happen. Older people are more directed towards making things matter. They have driven to many places in the world, in their heads and into other people’s lives that they generally are a lot more interesting and insightful.  They know scenic routes and can warn you about dead-ends and the most beautiful stops. Aging brings wrinkles and scars but those are from carrying the burden of your youth’s stretched out future.  In your older years, you can, as the song goes, let it go and happiness will be easier to summon. – Rappler.com