A day off... a day on

I was training yesterday - a full and intense day of working with 15 people and looking at issues of working in a multi-cultural, multi-difference environment.  As I've said before, I love this work and will carry on as long as this body and the economy allows.

At the end of such a day I am pretty tired.  I come home and flop down on the couch and don't stir for at least an hour.  Last night's tiredness turned into a full night's sleep and lo and behold, it's morning and my blog entry for yesterday was not done.  So here goes last night's entry this morning.

As I was delivering my training course yesterday one of the issues that arose was a discussion of age discrimination.  I am almost always the oldest person in the room and am aware that I am often as old as the grandparents of some of the participants.  This doesn't trouble me and is something I feel pretty good about.  I do bring a certain amount of wisdom and experience to my work.  I also bring a blase attitude and recognise that as I get older I am not so caught up in the minutiae of day to day life.  Did I say the wrong thing?  I am able to apologise and put it right.  Did I dribble my lunch?  Who cares.  Is my hair OK?  My make-up?  Who cares.  This is quite liberating and is also quite a powerful position to be in.  If I no longer have to worry about the small stuff I can devote time and energy to things that really matter.

What I picked up yesterday was a widely-held assumption that as people age they lose the ability to learn new things.  Computer technology is always the thing that is mentioned. There is a point in this, but only a small grain of truth in that in order for me to tax my already very busy brain with new instructions and new information I have to be convinced of the befefits, the what's in it for me argument.

When I buy a new mobile phone I am horrified by the number of programmes, buttons, features and apps I am expected to learn.  I usually wind up being able to make and receive calls and send basic texts.  I can even take a photograph, though I have no idea how to transfer said photo to my computer.  This is enough for me.  The phone is now fit for purpose and there is no need in me to learn anything more about this ridiculously over complex piece of equipment. Did I have a different attitude when I was younger? The short answer is no.  I was never gadget-minded or enamoured with technology.

This, I think, is the point.  As we age we don't get stupider, or less able to absorb new information, we are exactly the same as we were when we were younger.  If we weren't curious about the world as young adults, we are unlikely to wake up one morning post-retirement with a new found passion for finding out things.  I can't say this never happens, but I do believe that our natures remain fairly the same. 

There are always going to be stories about the women who take up sky diving and bungee jumping at 85, but this is not the norm.  We generally stay true to ourselves.  This aging business is so strange.  I am still trying to figure out who I am and where I'm going next and while I'm busy doing that I'm getting older and more decrepit.  One of these days I will have worked out what my next incarnation is going to be and maybe it'll be too late. I could hurry up, but I'm also slowing down a bit.

All of this started because I read that Ringo Starr is 70 years old today.  Impossible.