“Listen to your elders” sometimes feels like a saying from a bygone era, especially in the “OK, Boomer” age. While it’s true that age doesn’t always equal wisdom, we may have tossed the Baby Boomer out with the bathwater when it comes to giving an ear to elder perspectives.
A woman who goes by “TikTok Memaw” shared a video addressing people younger than her.
“I’m 64 years old, and I’m gonna tell you that you don’t know what you have,” she said. “But not in the same way people usually say it.”
Young people think they have time
She shared that she heard an older person say, “I know what it feels like to be young. But you don’t know what it feels like to be old.” And that stuck with her.
“That’s the part nobody warns you about,” she said. “Because when you’re young, you think you have time. That’s just something you have. You spend it like it’s endless. You put things off. You say, ‘later’ like it’s promised. Later, I’ll take the trip. Later, I’ll call them back. Later, I’ll wear that outfit. Later, I’ll start living.”
Memaw pointed out that older people don’t have to guess what it’s like to be young. They remember it.
“We remember having energy and not realizing that was a gift,” she said. “We remember bodies that didn’t hurt. We remember chances we thought would come back around. We remember being you.”
Time is shorter looking back than looking forward
Those of us in the latter half of life do remember being young. It’s easy for young people to assume that older people can’t relate to them, that their youth is just a distant memory. When you’re young, “old” feels like the distant future. But when you’re old, young feels an awful lot like yesterday.
“One day, you’re gonna remember being who you are right now,” Memaw said. “And it’s gonna hit you in the chest when you realize this moment you’re rushing through was the life you’re going to miss. You don’t know what it feels like to wake up and wish you had just one more ordinary Tuesday with the people you love. You don’t know what it feels like to look at your hands and realize how much time has passed through them. But the older people do.”
‘Trying to reach backwards and hand you something before it’s too late’
Memaw highlights why it’s important to listen when an elder tells young people to slow down, or take the picture, or take the trip while they are able to.
“It’s not nagging,” she said. “It’s memory talking. It’s experience. It’s trying to reach backwards and hand you something before it’s too late, and it’s gone.”
It’s not always easy for young folks to hear such advice. Life feels so big when you’re young. There’s so much to figure out. So many possible paths you could choose, which is both exhilarating and terrifying. But older people know how that feels, too. They lived it. And their perspective looking back might just help you live your younger years with greater rewards and fewer regrets.
‘A live well-lived’ vs. ‘a life…well, lived’
An Oscar-nominated short film called Retirement Plan speaks to the idea of not squandering time and prioritizing how you want your life to be spent while you have it.
As one person wrote in the comments on the film, “There is a difference between a ‘life well-lived’ and ‘a life… well, lived.’”
Naturally, not everyone responds to advice to live life to its fullest in the same way. Some people really need to hear it and find it inspiring. Other people already feel anxious about all the things they aren’t doing or haven’t done, so being reminded of the fleeting nature of time tends to increase anxiety.
Still, the perspective older people have can be really valuable. Elders may not fully understand the external realities facing young people in the modern world, but wisdom about time is timeless.
You can follow TikTok Memaw on TikTok for more wisdom and advice.
