May 4, 2022

My husband, when he was about a decade away from his anticipated retirement date, came up with a plan as to what he would do for the rest of his life after he reached that glorious milestone. He’d hoped, by the time that he retired, that he would be able to pursue what for him would have been a wonderful hobby: he had it in mind to restore steam-era farm equipment. He’s been a tinkerer all his life, and had an acquaintance who became a friend, an elderly gentleman who actually had a working steam traction engine. Everything about that piece of machinery fascinated David, and he spent a lot of time with that man learning all he could and at the same time helping him with some of the work of his farm.

He set about planning how he could make his dream a reality. He’d need a workspace, one that he could use year-round. Well, we figured we had enough land here to put up a garage of sorts. The interesting part would be finding just the right piece of equipment for sale in need of some TLC and David’s innate mechanical talents. That would be the last phase of his plans, and he thought to begin looking for the perfect metal candidate about a year off from his retirement.

And then, just a few years shy of his 65^th birthday, David was diagnosed with COPD—Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. And as he drew nearer to that retirement date, he knew that as much as he would have loved working on his long-imagined piece of steam-era farm equipment, he could no longer, in all honesty, manage the task, physically.

He was deeply disappointed, but he didn’t let himself dwell in that dark place for very long. David knew he had to find something to keep him busy when he was no longer a part of the work-a-day world, and if he couldn’t exercise his body in that pursuit, he would exercise his mind, instead. So after he gave the matter a lot of thought and, knowing that whatever he decided to do, it would have to be a bit more sedentary than what he was used to, he came up with his plan B.

He decided that he would write a book. But not just one book. He set his sights on producing a trilogy.

David’s adaptability is a skill honed over a lifetime of being faced with disappointments, of having to rethink a situation and take a new track. In short, it’s a skill honed from living real life every day. To date he has completed two of the three books, and while seeing them published may be something he does down the road, that wasn’t the point. In November he will celebrate his fifth year of retirement, and I can tell you that by and large, he has been content, and not at all bored.

I compare his example of dealing with life to what we see around us, and it makes me feel sorry for the younger generations. Quite frankly, they have been cheated.

And in all the ways I think that the children here in North America have been short-changed over the last twenty to thirty years, the one I believe is the most egregious is that we have made life far too easy for our children and grandchildren—to the point that they have not learned how to deal with disappointment or frustration.

It is one of the worst unintended consequences of the so-called kinder, gentler environment with which we’ve surrounded our children in the last twenty-plus years. Children stopped having to worry about failing a grade in school; they stopped having to worry about not making the team. They didn’t have to worry about not winning a trophy at the end of the sports season, because everyone won a trophy.

Oh, what’s that? You read a history book and now feel ashamed of some of the ways our forefathers and mothers behave? Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. We’ll just rewrite the history books!

These latest generations, be they millennials or gen z, who have been immersed in the lifestyle of instant gratification, of never having to fail or be excluded, could very well end up having an extremely rocky road ahead of them. As they reached adulthood, they began to discover that as padded and insulated as their growing up years had been, they were completely unprepared for real life. And those educators and politicians, clearly folks who hadn’t dealt well with their own encounters with frustration and disappointment and therefore thought to spare the poor darlings a healthy dose of the same, instead left them ill prepared to face those very real things—things that because of our being human are practically guaranteed in real life.

Here I digress to impart a clue, because I truly believe everybody should have at least one: real life happens independent of anyone’s wishes.

We have a generation of people who grew up believing that they should be happy, and they should not have to face any tough, emotional situations. That they shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads… In short, we have raised a generation that believes a whole hell of a lot of lies.

To those geniuses who came up with that theory that the way to raise kids is without having them face anything “uncomfortable”, and are still doing so, I have one question.

Where did you ever get the idea that throwing a child into the deep end of the pool was the ideal way to teach that child how to swim?

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury