I wish more people older and wiser than I embraced the “wiser elder” role with more gusto, it’s such an attractive and important job IMHO. I know a lot of folks who share family stories and ancestry intrigue and historical accounting on the regular and with ample detail — and that is such a gift. But what I don’t hear enough of is a synthesis of it all, what the big takeaways were — what they LEARNED from these experiences and how others can benefit from their mistakes or misperceptions or big achievements. We need more wisdom in this world!

OR (AND) Maybe there’s plenty of it going on and it’s just my younger ears that can’t distinguish the prattle from the epiphany. That’s probably the more likely explanation. It’s happening, I just can’t hear it because my dang brain is worried about more trivial matters, like “isn’t the 90 Day Fiancee tell-all about to start?” or “did I put my deodorant on this morning?”. I know well the way my face felt sometimes when Dad would go on, and on, and on, and on about some great- great- great- uncle’s wife’s first cousin and all the great things they did. I could feel my mouth gaping and my eyes blanking, everything so heavy and annoyed and — elsewhere. I was such a dumb jerk!

Maybe we need both — more mouths shouting wisdom from the hilltops and more hand-cupped ears open to receive it down below. I’m going to make a better effort to do both, now and when I’m skipping along my sunset stroll, yammering on and on and on. #GrandPlans

“The service that the whole world needs from the elders is not the service of hours spent and time put in and documents finished and machines fixed. There are untold numbers of people who can do all of those things. No, the service of the elders is not a service of labor, it is a service of enlightenment, of wisdom, of discernment of spirits. Only the carriers of generations past can give us those things, because wisdom is what lasts after an experience ends.” ― Joan D. Chittister, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully