Selected Columns
Kaleidoscope of the Heart: Growing old is a tough road, and it deserves our respect
I've had many chances to talk with men in their 50s, and if their words could be summarized in a single phrase, it would be: "There are some things you can't understand until your reach this age."
A weakening body, parents in need of serious nursing care, and friends dying are all experiences that come when these men pass the 5-0 mark, making them realize life is different than when they were young and often prompting a reexamination of their values.
While I nodded saying I know how they are feeling, it also came as a bit of a surprise to me. To say that things change as you age is, if you think about it, the most basic of the basic realities of life. However, without the experience of the passing years, I think there are many people who secretly believe that they alone will stay the same forever. Particularly for those successful at work and with an active life, the prospect of aging, of becoming frail, seems to drop from view.
"I've lost so many things, and it makes me anxious," says one man, adding: "Now that I think about it, my parents, my superiors; they've all been down this road. But they never let their anxiety show on their faces, and so I never realized what they were going through. They were great people."
This man's superiors are not the only "great" people out there. Since the dawn of humanity, people have grown up and then grown old, losing family and friends along the way and feeling their own bodies grow weaker with time. This process can be seen as sad, futile, and scary, but most people take it in stride, saying "Well, that's life." If seen in this way, then all the generations that have come before us, and those now reaching old age deserve respect as "great" people.
And yet in this society where we prize productivity, elderly people tend to be treated as nothing but expensive drains on our medical system, or useless people who cannot work. That is, we treat them like baggage. People now will say things like "It's a strange society that rolls out the welfare red carpet just for the elderly," without a hint of concern. Isn't such a cool attitude to living members of our own society what's strange?
Really, it is to our elders -- who have expended so much effort in building their lives, working, raising the next generation, and who must now bear up under the threats of illness -- that we must pay respect. Perhaps I'm only saying this because I myself am at the edge of old age. But then again, that shouldn't be the case. (By Rika Kayama, psychiatrist)
Click here for the original Japanese story
(Mainichi Japan) February 28, 2010