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jack wrote:
> Can you put an old head on young shoulders?
>
> Or should it not be allowed because the young perhaps don't like to learn from elders, who have learned the hard way.
>
> In other words the young don't want to be told how to do something, they want to learn with all the mistakes that go along with it on there own.
>
> Then they come round to the same conclusion that the elder person could have suggested to them in the first place.
The thing is, two different "elder people" might give two different and completely contradictory sets of advice. And neither of them may actually be suitable ... the world of the 21st century is far removed from the mid-20th, and some parts of older peoples' experience is no longer valid (equally, advice that works for one country may not work for another).
The best that we can do to be helpful, I think (please feel free to disagree) is to offer both our advice / views, and the experiences which have led us to offer that advice - that way, people can judge how relevant it is likely to be to them. This applies to anyone giving advice to anyone, not just old-to-young ... my first posts to this forum were seeking help (and I've done so a couple of times since), and some of the most useful advice came from those much younger than me.
It goes without saying that I think it's important to be supportive, whether our advice is taken or not. All points of view are useful in helping people consider all courses of action in reaching a decision. And , sometimes, people do NEED to make mistakes in order to learn from them: I did (and do).
NW
(I assume I'm an "elder person" - though at 52 I'm a bit uncomfortable with the label!)
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Your example seems to deal with people skills. Some seem to have people skills naturally, others must work hard to learn people skills, and then some just consider it a lost cause and say they can't learn them.
[Updated on: Wed, 21 May 2008 10:19]
Cycling is the one sport where a guy can shave his legs, wear spandex and bright colors, and be accepted.
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Ok here goes. This is just an opinion just like everything is. Just because your an adult or advanced in years doesnt make you smart or wise. I know some guys in thier 60s who are dumb as a hand full of rocks. There are older people out there who have no common sence. I guess what Im saying is that because your older doesnt make you smarter, wiser, or better. Us Kids come to you for advice and your advice is an opinion and we consider all of it and think about it and either accept it or reject it. Its like NW said. Times have changed and they are still changing faster and faster. What was true 20 years ago isnt true now. there are things we have to learn on our own but we do ask advice and opinions.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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I think you hit the nail right on the head, Scott. When I was 14, and then for the next 10 years, I didn't want to hear anything my Dad had to say. I figured his advice came from his old world upbringing and didn't pertain to me or the modern world. I saw myself as belonging to a different culture and his thinking was from some antiquated, simplistic time that wasn't relevant to anything I had to deal with. And it's obvious, from your experience with your daughters, that not much has changed. It's strange how, when we reach our late twenties, our Dads tend to grow smarter year by year. By the time my Dad passed away at 86, I saw him as one of the wisest people I knew. But of course he hadn't changed, I'd simply matured myself and came to recognize the value of his life experiences. He'd made plenty of mistakes along life's inroads and knew, from personal experience, when I was about to make a bad choice. Of course his telling me that would almost guarantee that I would chose to ignore the advice, or better yet, deviate from it 180 degrees. And kids say the same thing today that I did, "you just don't understand the modern world or what I have to deal with, Dad. Things have changed". :-/
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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JimB
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Likes it here |
Registered: December 2006
Messages: 349
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Curtis expressed it perfectly when he said "Us kids come to you for advice and your advice is an opinion and we consider all of it and either accept it or reject it."
I've never liked to be "told" what to do or how to do it; though I gladly accept advice. For me the "why" is the most important part of advice; I learn from the why and am better able to then make my own decision.
Those who accept being told what to do or how to do it seldom learn from it, even when it turns out bad because they never got the why; and they then tend to blame the person who told them. In the end the decision is ALWAYS yours and you must have enough information to make that decision.
Your example about the company reps was one of communication; the younger rep was better able to communicate with you, which isn't at all unusual. The older guy might be very good at his job when dealing with people in his own age group or older.
Also very common is what NW related about his daughters. When we are young our parents are smart and our heros. In our teen years we become more independant and want to make our own decisions, good or bad; and we view our parents as less smart, especially if they continue trying to "tell" us what to do or how. But we grow out of that and are later able to judge our parents on their actual abilities (they really may be dumb).
JimB
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 19:41] |
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Michael Sargeant (vintage '41) wrote:
> Yet some guidelines are timeless, transcending culture and gender, applying to all ages and in all ages, pertinent to the individual and the masses.
I'm not sure that I believe in very many of these - if any. The more I learn about other times and cultures, the more of my life / our lives I realise is parochial rather than universal.
And rare indeed is the person who can separate the timeless from "all my lifetime" with any certainty ... I'm fairly sure that I can't!
> The suspension or selective application of these guides in the belief that they no longer apply gives rise to the complex rather than the simply lived life.
I'm not sure that the simply lived life is necessarily appropriate to the 21st Century. The single biggest difference I've noticed between my own age group & upwards and the mid-thirties downwards, is adaptation to a multi-stimulus environment - the ability to write creatively and follow one or more TV programmes at the same time, for example ... or to hold a conversation while simultaneously listening to music and MSNing. Complexity may be the best way to live in a wired and partly-virtual world
I think it's important that each generation challenges the limits of the "possible", and refuses to be bound by the sometimes self-imposed limitations of previous generations. Offering suggestions and advice when asked is appropriate ... but we must not try to imply that we ourselves have always got it right, and should recognise that other ways may be better ways for an evolving society.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Isn't this back to 'Expertise vs Experience'?
Your 45 year old will remain an idiot unless he understands his idiocy. He was probably always an idiot.
Our "experienced" dog breeder who asked the vet "How do the gallstones get into the dog?" was not someone I'd take advice on animal husbandry from, though she was experienced! But, had she been an expert in crochet her advice would have been useful.
I would be unlikely to ask a 90 year old how to play Grand Theft Auto well, even if he had played it. I'd ask someone skilled in games. If that includes the 90 year old, great.
This has nothing at all to do with age. Old people are worthy of respect if they have earned it. So are young people. I was in a department store some years ago when a vilely rude old person pushed her way to the front of the queue. "Serve me first, I'm old!" Yes, she said it.
The only reason she was not lynched was because she was old. Had she been young there would have been one hell of a row. She was, simply, a rude old person. Rude young people are called louts. They exist in similar proportions to louts in all age groups.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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As a young person I'm inclined to both agree and disagree, NW.
A lot has changed over the last 50 or so years and especially since the 80s, not just in terms of technology, but in terms of how the world works.
Once upon a time the best advice you could give a kid was to "work hard, find a good job and settle down". Now that is the worst advice you could give. The capitalist society we live in punishes people looking for security and stability and rewards those taking risks. You work for a company for 20 years? That means nothing, you'll be out on your arse if they find someone more suited to your position. Mobility and adaptability are the keys to success in this generation. Investment, ownership and passive income leads to success- being a doctor, lawyer, public servant or other qualified professional just leads one to be in middle-class debt unless they manage investments.
Technology has changed and I have had more world-experience and have more world knowledge than most people double my age. Yet, at the same time, Ryan's dad has followed the news like an addict for his whole life and at 50 he knows more about political history than me, even though I'm studying political science at Uni. He knows a lot, but his opinions are also grounded in dogma and slogans that he's learnt over the years- he holds a grudge against the poor economic policies of the Labor party 30 years ago, despite their good economic performance in recent times.
Society seems to be much as it always was. There are those that want power and will utilise people and resources to attain it and those happy being controlled. The current Information Age- while totally different to the Industrial Age on a practical level- really isn't too different socially. Nor is it too different to the Feudal Age. The living standard in the West has shot up dramatically, however and the Lower and Middle Class, comparable to the peasantry of the Feudal Ages has a much better standard of living. Yet the divide between power and powerless, ambition and desire for security, the haves and have-nots remains intact.
I think there is a lot of values that have universal merit. Tenacity, ambition, pursuit of freedom, charity. These things don't change with time. But are a lot of practices, paradigms and procedures that have changed. Past economical models, models for family life, models for employment are out of date. Concepts of nationality and locality are being eroded by international networks of companies, computers and media.
Like Curtis, I value the advice of those older than me, but I don't assign too much value to it, just because they are old. Sometimes I need to listen to the advice twice to put it into a relevant modern context in my own head, but generally experienced people have a lot to share. I try to reason through everything and come up with logical solutions. But experience is real, and those with experience have a real practical know-how that often trumps theory.
The best way to learn, however, is experience itself. There's a lot that just can't be taught by parents- kids need to screw up for themselves. Otherwise they'll stay kids forever.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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It is really really difficult to give advice and have it accepted. Any advice you give is your thought, not the other person's. To accept it the other person would have to admit to themselves that you know best.
When it is a question of which DVD player to buy it is easy to accept that one's geek son-in-law knows best.
When it is a question of a life choice - "should Garry and I start a family?" - then it is obvious that the adviser cannot know best.
I think that sometimes the only acceptable way of advising someone is to ask questions and to take great care never to answer them yourself (not even by hints). This has the advantage that there is nothing to rebel against so your advice won't bring on behaviour diametrically opposed to what you think best.
And that has always been a danger in my family.
Like Scott we have two girls. Now they are 41 and 42. They both married unsuitable men and both got divorced and now have two children each by much nicer men and I think are happy. When they reached the age of sixteen we allowed them to have their boyfriends stay the night. Other people were horrified, but they didn't get pregnant and maybe it helped that it wasn't the fact of them having sex that mattered to their parents but that they did it as safely as possible.
I think I would have found bringing up a son much harder - but maybe that's just me being cowardly.
Anyway, one can never do the control experiment and so whether our advice does good or not can't really be tested - maybe different actions would have been better.
Love,
Anthony
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jack
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Likes it here |
Location: England
Registered: September 2006
Messages: 304
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ok.
you are born with a basic programme, then you start learning, i,e walking tastes, reading etc.
This takes time and we all learn at different speeds and do not all end up at the same level.
i 100% agree with Curtis on this topic.
I know from my life skills that if you don't know why you do something in a certain way to achieve the goal, then you will never get there, further more an adult or more mature person could not advise the individual because he lacks to life skills and thinking ability to get there.
In other words that is why there are leaders and followers in life.
I.E if you want some one to do something in a certain way in a work environment then let the person think it was there idea, and bingo they achieve.
I'm not having a pop at young or old, i know you cant put an old head on young shoulders, but you can offer advise, and given in the right manner will be taken on board providing the younger person has respect for you.
life is to enjoy.
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