Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

~ Live & Learn

It crossed his mind that maybe one of the most telling differences between the young and the old lay in this detail.

As you aged you cared less and less about what others thought of you, and only then could you be more free.

— Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel (Bloomsbury Publishing; 1st edition (November 2, 2021)

Notes:

40 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call”

  2. For a lot of aged people it goes the other way round. They are getting more and more conventional. We think such general statements are rather populistic.
    All the best
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

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  3. Would that it was so simple – but at the end of they day, some still seek the validation of others – I think of Facebook and those who paint a fantasy life for others to see…if one didn’t care about other peoples’ opinions, why construct a life so different from the reality?

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    1. Big Question so early in the morning.

      “The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit. Not that that really makes much difference, because now we’ve learned that every day needs to be special. Every day.”

      — Fredrik Backman, “Anxious People: A Novel” (Atria Books, September 8, 2020)

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      1. Perhaps a big question, but I was confident you would find a substantive response – and I was right. Ironically, the quote from Anxious People, is one I highlighted when reading the book…

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  7. Would love to assert that I’ve thrown off the shackles of caring about the opinions of others, but I’d be fibbing. Do I care less than I used to? Yes. Would I like to be even more ‘free?’ But of course. I’m a ‘WIP’….work in progress. 😉

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  8. I wouldn’t say that I don’t care what others think of me, but that I see how little influence I have over how some, if not most, people see me.

    I’d say too that love itself is freeing or one might question whether or not what you feel and share is love.

    To love oneself is to feel love, loved and loving. To reciprocate. There’s a tremendous receptivity needed, and when ready, there to be cultivated and harvested in order to allow oneself to be vulnerable enough to others not expect anything from them and to still feel love inspite of it all. For myself, that’s love’s truest blessing and frees one from undo expectations.

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  9. Everyone had such fine comments – your followers are so darn smart!. I do llike to think we link it to age as it is understood that wisdom usually comes with it. Not the case for all. And some have managed to become more comfortable with who they are earlier than others. When you know and are good with who you are, you are less inclined to need the approval of others. I’m with Lori, I’m still a WIP!

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  11. Dave, Opinions.
    Opinions are preceded by some bias of the ego. It matters not what another thinks of you. It matters not what you think of you. What matters is the unprejudiced thought of you. Therefore it matters only what God thinks of you.
    “Remove the beam from one’s own eye, before removing the speck from the eye of another.” No generation has bragging rights on this.
    -Alan

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  12. I don’t believe I’ve heard of this prolific writer: Elif Shafak…She seems to have a passionate, dedication…and writes of difficult situations…she feels for people… She is brave…/// She is a red head and we know I have a soft spot for red heads…

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  13. True! This attitude really sets in and ossifies once you retire. LOL! It becomes especially apparent when you get together with classmates for 10-, 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-, and 55-year
    class reunions. (The closer to the end, the more frequent the reunions…)

    The early reunions are school cliques reassembling and people snubbing the same ones they snubbed (or were snubbed by) as teenies. By the 40th reunion and later, everyone has suffered divorces, major illnesses, or other ego-crushing life events, and you hug and kiss and commiserate and congratulate each other on making it to another year. You really don’t care about those old cliques, and find yourself enjoying a talk with the ringleaders, mostly fat and beat up by age now, like yourself!

    I’ve reached that stage of life, and it is nice.

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  14. I think the difference is I care more about what I think about myself — which gives me the freedom to stop caring about what others think of me because I do less of the things that got people thinking ‘ill’ of me in the past! 🙂

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  15. Pingback: Your opinion of me is not my concern… | Dare Boldly

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