Despite the difficulties that come with getting older, we all hope we live long enough to experience them. But we also hope, of course, to find plenty of peace and comfort as well. According to one expert who has written about happiness in the retirement years, two key attributes are essential—in old age or any season of life: a good sense of humor and a willingness to forgive.1
A good sense of humor lifts perspective. When life gets us down, when our bodies are aging, when things don’t go the way we hoped and we feel stuck, nothing lifts the gloom quite like a good laugh. One aging couple noticed that it helps to stop and enjoy the lighter side of life. They try to find something to smile about each day: a joke, a humorous story, even their own mishaps. Somehow their circumstances don’t seem quite so bad when they take a minute to laugh.
Forgiveness can have a similar power in our lives. Like humor, forgiveness heals the heavy heart. As offenses pile up into the golden years, nothing clears the air like a healthy dose of forgiveness. Some choose to nurse grudges and polish up old put-downs, but what a burden that is to carry throughout our lives! Forgiveness feels so much better. As the retirement expert warned, “Forgiveness may not come easily after many years of disappointments or old grudges within a relationship. … But ‘practice makes perfect.’”2 One older woman decided to adopt this attitude toward her husband, who seemed to always forget their anniversary. She could have become resentful, assuming that he was insensitive and uncaring, but instead she decided to respond with love and forgiveness, and even a little humor, giving him good-natured reminders as the anniversary approached. With forgiveness and humor, she saw her husband in a more compassionate light, and their love grew.
Moving along in years doesn’t mean we have to be set in our ways and patterns of interaction. We can see the advancing years as increasing opportunities to open our hearts, look for the humor in life, and strengthen our relationships with forgiveness and love.
1 See Maryanne Vandervelde, Retirement for Two (2004); cited in Glenn Ruffenach, “When Couples Have Different Attitudes about Aging,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 1, 2019, wsj.com/articles/when-couples-have-different-attitudes-about-aging-11564684492.
2 Vandervelde, in Ruffenach, “When Couples Have Different Attitudes about Aging,” wsj.com.
__________________________________________
Sept. 22, 2019
Broadcast Number 4,697
The Tabernacle Choir
Orchestra at Temple Square
Conductors
Mack Wilberg
Ryan Murphy
Organist
Andrew Unsworth
Host
Lloyd Newell
Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
Ryan Murphy
Be Thou My Vision
Irish melody; arr. Mack Wilberg
Finale, from Symphony no. 6
Charles-Marie Widor
My Song in the Night
American folk hymn; arr. Mack Wilberg
Brazzle Dazzle Day, from Pete’s Dragon
Al Kasha & Joel Hirschhorn; arr. Ryand Murphy
Let Us All Press On
Evan Stephens; arr. Richard Elliott