Hi there. I'm Diane Grissel and I'm also
known as Silver Dispedience. And I want to wreck a little
bit. Hi, I'm Diane Grissel and I'm
also known take three. Hi, I'm Diane Grissel.
Welcome to the Silver Dispedience Podcast.
Today I want to talk about our authority figure.
And what I mean by that is all day long at every stage of our
lives, from basically from 2 years old when we start to learn
the word no to each year we get older, we are making decisions.
And often at some point we start to let others impact those
decisions for us. And I believe a big benefit of
aging or each year we live our lives.
And it's very important, you know that I believe these
awarenesses can come at 10 years old, they can come at 15, they
can come at 40 or 80. But I believe a big benefit of
our years, which equate to aging, is that age and
experience tend to make us our own authority figures.
You know, and ideally, we get to a stage in our lives when gone
are the days when we're completely vested in what
everybody thinks about our every action.
Someday, hopefully, we become old and wise enough to decide
for ourselves what's right and what and that what's not right
in our lives. So we get to make those choices.
And this is not to say we stop respecting the opinions of
others, or that we don't respect those opinions.
Rather, it's more that maybe, you know, we can get to a point
where we, we make the choice to become better at listening to
those opinions of others and then pulling out what we think
might be valid and then more comfortably deciding what's best
for ourselves. You know, like this could even
include, you know, I don't know how people talk about aging.
You know, I know people of every age that are terrified of
getting older. So let's talk about that a
minute because it's an example. And hey, I am older.
I'm, you know, 63, so I'm a good example of an old person, you
know, depending on who's making the judgment.
And, you know, people talk about, oh, how older is how old
people act. But with every stereotype, no
matter what the stereotype is, we have to determine our own
truth within the statement. Or might I even call it a
judgment, because opinions are often perceived as judgments
from another person. You know, let's say I know I
said, you know, a couple of times, so maybe I am getting a
little forgetful, but this doesn't mean that forgetfulness
is inevitable. Yes, we have crammed brains.
They're thinking about all kinds of stuff all day long.
So yeah, we do forget a few things.
But older doesn't mean we're all going to be retired or sitting
in rocking chairs, though some of us may continue to rock and
really like rock'n'roll, and others may have moved on to jazz
or classical or something else we liked that we liked when we
were younger or liked when we were older.
There's no time and place for when we decide we like things or
don't like things. These are all ways we let our
personalities come out and shine.
Just like retirement. I know people who are retired at
40 and I know people that are 80 and will never retire.
So all these things are individual choices.
Age at any stage of our life at 17480 does not mean we're less
productive. It doesn't mean we're
technologically inferior. Impossible to teach, you know,
it's we. We don't.
We don't have to be set in our ways, or we have it assumed
we're set in our ways. We always have the capacity to
change. We can be always working out.
We can work out when we're younger, we can work out when
we're older. Maybe the way we do it has to
change a little, but we can still do it.
So they're all different kinds of things.
And at every stage when we talk about authority figures, this
doesn't mean that we are unable to make decisions without a
tribunal of family opinions and blah blah blah.
That all go into how we're thinking about making choices.
And I think the reality is that each of us gets to individually
define at every year of our life what our life that year is going
to look like and how we're going to look back and reflect on it.
And just as no two people are identical, our perspectives on
how to live life at any age covers an equally vast spectrum.
And I believe that each year we're picking up experience.
And those experiences that can happen at any and every stage
are the very things that make us more comfortable with addressing
the challenges of life, as well as looking at ourselves more
closely and determining who is the real authority figure in our
life, which is our moral compass.
We each hold this moral compass, and we have to decide what our
actions are and what how those actions will determine the life
we ultimately lead. So of course we're all going to
look to other people for their opinions at times.
But we also need to know in our hearts that once we decide to
start opinion seeking, we've probably already made our
decisions. And what we're really looking
for is validation of our plans, which someone may or may not
give us. You know, it's up to us to
decide what's right and own it. That's the big part.
You can't turn around and say, well, I made this choice, but
no, you have to own it. So silver disobedience can
happen at any age. You could be 15, you could be
40, you could be 80. It's an attitude.
It's a stage of taking and accepting utmost responsibility
for our actions. When we no longer want others to
make our decisions, when we start to make them ourselves, we
need to own the responsibility for those choices.
So today I'll ask you Are you your own authority figure?
I look forward to any comments you might have about that.
I'm Diane Grissel. This is the Silver Disobedience
Podcast. Please subscribe and come see me
more often. Take care.
Have a wonderful day.