By Rich Kozlovich
Some years ago when I was in my late 60's one of my elderly accounts (in their 80's) handed me a book entitled, the Joys of Old Age. I chuckled and said, there is no joy in old age. They insisted I look at it, so to be polite I did. I opened the book and the first page was blank, as were all the rest. I chuckled, they laughed, a lot, and then we all laughed. I've tried to find this "book" to give as a gift to friends, but alas, I can't seem to.
Last week my long time friend Mike sent another one of those "what happens when men get old" pieces, which I'm going to share with you. However, I've deleted parts, restructured parts, paraphrased much of the rest, and even added some things as I see it.
As I grew older it became obvious pleasing everyone is simply impossible, but it turns out I have an amazing innate ability to really tick people off, and for me, that's pretty much become a piece of cake now. In dealing with people I've decided it isn't important if they're happy with me, its only important if I'm happy with them. Life seems to work better that way. I’m responsible for what I say and do, not for what they choose to understand and like.
Old men are often considered impolite and grouchy, but is it possible that's the definition for honesty? An old acquaintance got divorced for the third time and I asked him if he intended to marry again. He adamantly said no. I said, good, because it's clear your not very good at it. So, in some cases RSVPing to a wedding invitation by saying "Maybe next time" may not be the
polite response, but it may be the honest one.
People have suffered from a lack of common sense forever, it's just so much more pronounced these days because they just insist on publishing their views online for the world to see, as if the world really cares, and for which I was more than happy to remain totally ignorant of before this. Common sense is like deodorant. The people who need it the most never use it.
My tolerance for idiots is extremely low in my old age. In younger years I had a bit of natural immunity to idiots, but there's new strain out there that's overwhelmed my immune system, and I've totally lost any tolerance to stupidity, for those choosing to be ignorant, and irrational social paradigms.
Society fails to understand old people, especially those with arthritis, which are most old people, and which makes doing things painfully difficult, but we're not lazy. We prefer to think of it as efficient use of energy, which means on some days, I don't get one darn thing done, and I'm totally happy with that. As for working out, I prefer avoiding any pain associated with deep knee bends and pushups, but I am willing to do sit-ups via my electric recliner.
I believe in diets. I thought more that one was better. That way I got sufficient nourishment, but unfortunately I have a bathroom scale that constantly lies to me. So I ignore the little creep by shoving it into a corner, and it will stay there until it apologizes for lying.
I hear women say men keep pushing their buttons. If that were true, why isn't there a mute button, and if there is, why can't we find it? Someone said:
"God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the world. Then he made the earth round. . . and laughed and laughed and laughed".
Nah, God never said that, he never said that at all. He knew better.
Everything is so confusing and complicated these days. My wife laughs at me and say's you sound just like your mother, who was in her 90's at the time. Well, she was right, everything is entirely too complicated these days, and "user" friendly government web sites offer unending proof of that, so when struggling to open these stupid self sealing plastic bags, (remarkable how inanimate objects can be stupid) I decided to evaluate that effort against the fact it took 20 years, trillions of dollars, and four presidents to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
Finally, we're watching an entire generation of people who are stunningly ignorant about history try and rewrite our history, and when they're done there will be three things about which I'm adamantly sure of.
It will be inaccurate, misspelled and have no punctuation.
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