For one of my psychology classes, I was given the task of interviewing an elderly person about his or her life story. This process of reviewing one's life journey is an immensely important part of aging to help create acceptance and peace for the person facing the end of his or her life. I also hoped, through this interview, to help break the negative stigma surrounding aging and death. To make my project more challenging, I had to choose a stranger, because relatives or friends might not be completely honest out of fear of judgment or hurting others. So, after working up the courage to approach a random 80-year-old man and interview him, I gained an amazingly insightful and bewildering perspective on life that I am here to share now.
First, he shared with me that there is never one right decision in life.
There is a beauty to life, and that is that it's largely unknown. There will always be a multitude of decisions that could potentially serve as the "correct" or "right" one, but there is truly no way of knowing for sure. So instead, the man told me that whatever decision I end up making, make it the right one through the heart and effort I put into it. When he said this, I was overcome with a sense of ease for the future of my life because I constantly stress whether or not I am on the right path. However, no matter what decisions I make such as my career choice or partner in marriage, I can have a sense of peace knowing that if I put all my energy and soul into the decision I can make it the right one.
Make sure to "shop around"
Direct quote from the 80-year-old man himself. Whether it's your college, career path, or potential partner in life, he said to make sure to explore your options. Life is too beautiful, crazy, and complex to just settle on the first thing that falls into your lap. Life shouldn't be easy, nor should it be boring, so go out and see all that it has to offer.
Looking back it seems like many things in life happened by chance/fate.
If he hadn't been friends with his tennis partner, he would have never met his wife who was a mutual friend. If he hadn't been sitting next to a specific coworker, he may have never learned about a new job opening with which he went on to spend the next 40 years working. So do we really have that much control over our lives? He said this realization was wildly humbling.
You may not like all chapters of your life.
Life was not made to be easy and you won't always be happy. Working the same career for 40 years can get boring and stale, just like a marriage can. You have to actively work to embrace a positive attitude and try to enjoy what life throws your way. He explained how every stage of life comes with its challenges and blessings, but it's mostly amazing in the end.
You are going to need some humor to get through it all.
He explained how suffering and loss are a big part of life that leave you with a lifelong heartache, but humor has helped him in coping. He recognized that the death of his sisters, parents, and close friends was something he carried with him always. He shared with me a quote he learned from his Jewish upbringing: "There is nothing as whole as a broken heart."
Death is humbling, mysterious, challenging, and bewildering.
The way the man discussed death and talked about how he is now looking at death was like something beyond this world that I can hardly put into words. I felt his sense of starting to come to terms with the idea of death and again he used humor to cope by saying how he thinks of death like the song, “I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in.”
At the end of this process, I realized that each person has an incredibly unique and insightful story to tell. I was beyond moved by this whole experience and honored that the man was willing to share as much as he did.
