A Certain Point Of View

My how things change as we age!

I look back over my life and think about things in the past. Good things, bad things they all seem to be slightly skewed or off color, like an old picture long forgotten in the box under the bed.

Are they skewed and off color, or has my view of lives important moments changed? I have found as I grow older that things have changed importance in my life. Things that once angered me now fill me with sorrow or dismay. The acts of others have become more tolerable, or at least they generate less of a reaction.

Have I mellowed with age? I don't think so. Things still affect me but my reactions are different from when I was younger. I've learned that anger returned only begets more anger in most cases. I've learned to 'bite my tongue' at times when in the past I would have said something out of anger or spite.

I have also learned that many times 'listening' and 'hearing' are not the same thing but both must be done simultaneously. Many times a person lashing out in anger or hurting from loss doesn't want or need excuses or 'I understand how you feel'. They want someone to hear what they are saying and understand where they are coming from. When we say 'I understand how you feel' without listening and hearing what the person is saying we often demean or devalue that person's problem. To them, we don't really seem to care. We're blowing smoke. Sometimes in order to help someone, we must 'manage' a situation. Learn to listen, hear and develop solutions that are beneficial rather than just popping off meaningless words.

I've noticed that in learning as I grow older, the meanings of things I thought were correct as a kid have changed. I look back and wonder if I was that stupid then or I'm that smart now, usually if I'm honest with myself neither is true. I was what I was in that instance of time. Now, I'm different. The sum of all those experiences has made me who I am, kind of like building a puzzle out of different pieces. Alone, they look out of place on the table when you first dump them out. Together, they become a large image. Just like a photo puzzle, our lives blend and merge as we grow, altering the view we have of ourselves and our perception of others, even blurring the edges of things that were once crisp clear-cut events in our lives.

Amazing how we change as we grow, isn't it? Things we hated, we love. Things we love, we now dislike. Things that made us sad now allow us to provide solace to others. Things we once did not care about have come to the forefront in our lives. People we used to not tolerate become tolerable. This is part of growing older. Knowing when and how to combine these moments in our lives to better ourselves brings us wisdom, for wisdom is having knowledge and being able to apply that knowledge for the betterment of ones self and ones surroundings.

The trick is not in the knowing how to use this wisdom for yourself, but how to reach out and share it with others allowing them to blossom from the sprinkling of your life into theirs. Reach out and force the knowledge onto someone and the wisdom becomes a sword that cuts them, injuring their spirit, turning their experience into an ugly scar on what could be a nurtured healthy life. Sometimes the best results of our wisdom come not from our own jagged edged experiences slashing out but from the combination of those experiences into gentle strength and piece of mind.

Which would you rather have? Helpful wisdom of the ages holding you up and supporting you like a loving parent to a child who scrapped their knee? or the razor's edge cutting into an already wounded sole, further scarring an already tattered life?

I know which I would prefer.