Learning From Those Even Older

I just spent five days with my 89-year-old mother-in-law.

And I learned something remarkable.

I'm young!

At 68, I don't get to say that very often. But compared to my mother-in-law, I'm practically a teenager. A teenager with gray hair, a Medicare card, and a suspicious number of visits to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I went into those five days thinking I knew quite a bit about growing older.

I came away realizing I still have a lot to learn.

And some of those lessons are so important that I'll be passing them along to my grandchildren in the letters I'm writing to them.

Lesson One: It's All About Your Choices

My mother-in-law has a favorite expression. She says it several times a day.

"It's all about your choices."

Five simple words. A lifetime of wisdom.

Think about that.

Every day, we are handed hundreds of opportunities to make choices that will shape the quality of our lives.

We can choose to exercise or sit on the couch. Eat something healthy or enjoy our third helping of French fries. Read a good book or spend another hour scrolling through photographs of what strangers had for lunch.

We can choose to encourage someone or criticize them. Forgive someone or carry a grudge. Be grateful for what we have or miserable about what we don't.

We can choose to give our time to someone who needs us or spend that time feeling sorry for ourselves.

And perhaps most importantly, we can choose the kind of person we want to become.

Of course, not everything in life is a choice. Illness, tragedy, loss, and the consequences of other people's actions can turn our lives upside down.

But even when we cannot choose what happens to us, we often retain some power to choose how we respond.

That is an extraordinary gift.

And it is a gift we should never take for granted.

I want my grandchildren to understand that the person they become will not be determined by one great decision. It will be shaped by thousands of seemingly insignificant decisions, made day after day, year after year.

Your choices become your habits. Your habits become your character. And your character helps determine the life you live.

Choose wisely.

Lesson Two: Appreciate the Age You Are Right Now

Spending five days with someone who is 89 is a vivid reminder of what lies ahead.

The wrinkles. The aches. The physical limitations. The inconveniences of having a body with an increasingly questionable warranty.

But also the joys. The memories. The relationships. And the extraordinary privilege of having lived long enough to experience so much life.

Watching someone navigate the challenges of being 89 has given me a renewed appreciation for being 68.

Twenty-one years!

That's how much younger I am.

I find myself thinking about all the things I can still do today. Ride my bicycle. Hike beautiful trails. Play with my grandchildren. Travel. Learn. Write. Laugh.

Things that I sometimes take for granted.

And then a thought struck me.

Someday, if I'm fortunate enough to reach 89, I may look back at 68 and wonder why I didn't appreciate being so young.

Why wait until tomorrow to appreciate what we have today?

When I was 40, I probably complained about getting older. At 50, I may have worried about turning 60. At 60, I certainly didn't consider myself young.

Now, at 68, I would gladly tell my 40-year-old self to quit complaining and enjoy the ride.

And I suspect my 89-year-old mother-in-law might give me exactly the same advice today.

Lesson Three: Never Stop Learning From Those Who Have Traveled Farther

We spend much of our lives learning from people who are smarter, more educated, more successful, or more accomplished than ourselves.

But there is another kind of teacher we sometimes overlook.

Someone who has simply lived longer.

Someone who has celebrated more birthdays, buried more loved ones, survived more disappointments, and witnessed more of life's unexpected twists and turns.

Experience doesn't automatically make someone wise. But it certainly provides plenty of opportunities to become wiser.

And when someone has traveled 21 years farther down the road than you have, perhaps it's worth listening to what they have learned along the way.

That is one of the reasons I encourage grandparents to write letters to their grandchildren.

We have traveled roads they have yet to see. We have made mistakes they can learn from. We have discovered joys they might otherwise overlook.

Our grandchildren cannot inherit our experience. But they can inherit the wisdom we gained from it.

What an extraordinary gift to leave them.

My five days with my mother-in-law reminded me that growing older is inevitable, but growing wiser takes effort.

It requires curiosity. Humility. Gratitude. And the willingness to learn from others.

So here is what I plan to do.

I'm going to keep making better choices. I'm going to appreciate being 68 instead of wishing I were 48. And I'm going to listen more carefully to people who have been fortunate enough to live longer than I have.

Most importantly, I'm going to write these lessons down for my grandchildren.

Because someday, I hope they will understand something that took their grandfather 68 years to appreciate:

Don't spend your life wishing you were younger, waiting until you're older, or regretting yesterday.

Make good choices today. Be grateful for the age you are. And recognize that the life you're living right now is the life you'll someday wish you could live again.

And if you're fortunate enough to reach 89, I hope you'll still be teaching the youngsters a thing or two. Even the 68-year-old youngsters.

 (AI assisted)