Older,Wiser, and Entitled

While in the Library the other day, I stood behind a woman querying dues on her account. The library attendant didn't look a day over 15 years but was probably in her early twenties. I just can’t say the word “Librarian” since she looked nothing like the librarians I was used to growing up. Anyway, she made the mistake of telling the woman, an older woman , in a somewhat condescending tone, how the library system worked which didn't go over well.

She proceeded to tell the library attendant that she knew how the system worked. For everyone around to hear, she asked her to take a good look at her. “I am old” she said “I’ve been using the library before you were born” The incident got me thinking about why do we feel a sense of entitlement to knowledge after a certain age? Why does it bug the heck out of a middle age woman when a "child" tries to explain, say, how a system works? After all, according to scripture “a child shall lead them”. Not this time!

There are reasons why older folks feel that they are wiser than the rest of the population and as such their wisdom should be accepted, recognized and respected. One such reason is simply by virtue of having put in the time, in terms of years, on the planet. While not everyone over forty is wiser than a high school student, we tend to count our years as jewels in a crown and so we should. We must have learnt something in those years that would give us an advantage over a younger, perhaps even more world savvy teen.

There is the tendency to seek credit at a certain age for another reason. We have brought children, into the world or brought them into our homes and raised them. We taught them every thing they know – well almost everything – like how to use the library, how to study, how to shop, and in the case of my son, how to skate even though I was terrified to put on skates.

Raising a family and managing a home certainly means that you have acquired some wisdom about the world around you, and as such you should be capable of understanding some minor details about how the systems you utilize in everyday life works. Education and experience are also aces in the hole for experienced folks. Whether we got our education and experience in the hallowed halls of higher institutions or in the back alleys of the concrete jungle, we earned it.

The feeling of achievement, accomplishment and entitlement for having accumulated X number of years on the earth is truly euphoric. It is a good thing to think of age in terms of the positive as opposed to the negative connotations we often hear associated with ageing. However, getting too cocky about one’s acquired wisdom does not allow for graceful ageing. So while pride in accomplishments and milestones is a wonderful thing, we never stop learning even from the store clerk who wasn't born when we started shopping at that store.