Senior to Senior: Good Old Days

Old people talking about the “good old days” is a given, but just how good were they? As kids we vowed not to dwell on the past when we grew up, but remembering the past is what people do. The problem is that they (we) mostly remember the good stuff. We forget about “not so good” superstitions, diseases, plumbing, electricity, and all the other comforts that we now take for granted. I don’t think anybody wants to go back to the way things were. Now that we are “older” we too find ourselves reminiscing, just a little, but I’m thinking we are a little more realistic. Are we more stressed than we were in the past, or did we just handle it better back then? I suppose it depends on how far back you are willing to go. Stress has been with us since the beginning of time. In long ago days there were saber tooth tigers ready to eat you for breakfast. In the Middle Ages diseases that could kill you in the blink of an eye proliferated and superstitions ruled, and then there were the wars. People didn’t live long. The good old days. Hmmm, I don’t think so. Come on, do you really want to give up central heating and air conditioning? You know that you enjoy having a television set, a phone, riding in cars, a dentist who doesn’t hurt you, and medicines for nearly everything. Living longer is a given, not just a quirk of fate. We can’t deny that we are living in troubled times, and it is debatable whether our grandchildren will look back and say that these were the good old days. We tried to destroy our planet for heaven’s sake. Still, life is good, even though we wax philosophically about the days when children could play unsupervised, or you could bicycle through Europe without worrying about kidnappings or sex trafficking. It’s okay to reminisce about the good old days, but while you are remembering things fondly, try not to get stuck in a time warp. Instead, focus more on what you can do to make the future brighter, something that the next generation truly can enjoy.