Savoring Life
Psychological Articles by Boomeryearbook.com
As we baby boomers rocket through life, we stop somewhere near the end of it to look back on what we have achieved and we sometimes have the feeling we have ‘missed out’ somewhere on the important stuff!
Lives of baby boomers might be divided into sections: early life – where we learn to love our family and friends and where our values are set – where we gain an education and discover our skills and talents; the middle part of our lives where we find a partner, raise a family of our own and conduct a career throughout a series of job opportunities; followed by the final part where we sit back and either celebrate or regret what we did in the first two parts!
Psychological articles from the school of Positive Psychology have a take on this process of reviewing life. Baby boomers who suddenly take up hot air ballooning or drag racing or decide to climb Mont Blanc when they are pushing sixty sometimes draw comments such as: ‘He’s going through a mid life crisis’, or ‘There’s no fool like an old fool’ or ‘She’s trying to recapture her lost youth’, usually accompanied by a round of laughter.
These people are in fact merely ‘smelling the coffee’ – pursuing the activities they could not pay attention to when they were busy carving out a name in their chosen profession or spending hours doing the school run. Having an appreciation of life in later years is something that is actually quite common. Not only do people enjoy life when they have more time to appreciate it, they might also have the finances to sponsor the activities they want to indulge in; something that may have been lacking in early years.
As we get older, we begin to understand the value of living life to its fullest. We start to realize that as we develop the small aches and pains that come with age, there is not, as we thought, all the time in the World to travel, to see the places we always wanted to see and meet the people we always wanted to meet. Taking the time to savor the events we missed and appreciate the good things in life can be an attractive proposition as we enter middle and older age.
Psychological articles from Positive Psychologists describe the elderly attitude to life as introspective. Younger people cannot fully understand the limitations of age. Why would they? The analysis of time is something the young know very little about. Baby boomers, however, have the yardstick of their early years to know how much time is left to enjoy the good things in life: to spend time with the grandchildren; to sit in the sun instead of doing household chores; to make the best of things.
For some, smelling the coffee is merely the pleasure of spending time at home pruning the roses and learning new recipes; welcoming old friends for dinner and making new ones. The importance is to savor and appreciate, before it is too late.
The Psychological Article on Appreciation and Savoring: Remembering to Smell the Coffee is part of Boomer Yearbook’s continuing series of baby boomers psychological coaching tips and how to alleviate elderly problems. We believe knowledge is power. We’d love to hear what you think.
Boomer Yearbook is a Social Network and Psychological Articles for Baby Boomers. Connect with old and new friends, or expand your mind and ward off senior moments and elderly problems with dream analysis and online optical illusions and brain games provided by clinical psychologist Dr. Karen Turner. Join other Baby Boomers to stay informed, receive weekly Newsfeeds, and let your opinions be heard. Baby boomers changed the world. We’re not done yet!
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Tags: baby boomer, Elderly Problems, positive psychology, Psychological Articles