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With the
problems in the
economy and job market, one of the new ideas being proposed is to
encourage or
force old people to retire. This new idea has been proposed in nearly
every
generation. We remember it from when we were in our twenties, nearly
forty
years ago.
Our daughter
has become
very
upset with this idea. No, she is not afraid that we will take an early
retirement and start bothering her. She teaches Chinese and Political
Science.
She sees such a program as removing the people from her industry who
have first
hand knowledge and experience from the last political cycle.
We view the
issue
differently.
We would like to see an early retirement for those people who are old
and
restricted in thought. We know people who are in their twenties and are
not
open to new ideas and have never been open. We also know people who are
over
fifty and are always seeking new ideas, new horizons and new solutions.
At one time we
worked
with a
school system on their technology committee. They had a teacher who
converted
the engine shop into a technology lab. He was teaching hydraulics,
desktop
publishing, robots, etc. He had developed the entire curriculum and had
even
cloned it into another school.
This young and
innovative
teacher was under the gun to complete the process and find someone new
to head
the effort. He had only a couple of years before the school system
forced him
to retire, due to his age. He had several people that he was working
with who
could implement what he had created. They were thirty or forty years
younger,
but they were not innovative enough to grow and continue to keep the
project
current.
Our
daughter’s
concern is at
the heart of another issue. As it is said “if we do not learn
from history we
are forced to repeat it.” To paraphrase, if we are unaware of
the mistakes of
the past we will waste time and energy relearning them. That is, if we
remove
the people with experience we must make all the old mistakes again.
Mark Twain
defined
experience
as the lesson you learn just after you needed it. Age allows us to
experience
much. Age does not mean that we are slowing down or becoming restricted
in our
thoughts. Age also does not mean that we are wiser. Many people have
many years
on the planet but have learned little. They have experienced much but
have
little experience.
There is a
great
difference
between having one hundred experiences and having one experience one
hundred
times. If you ride the same roller coaster one hundred time in a row,
you may
have set a record and be tired or bored. If you ride one hundred roller
coaster
you can rate them against each other and can deduce what makes a roller
coaster
a roller coaster. You know roller coaster not just a roller coaster.
A
young
friend said that we are 60/20. Our calendar
age is sixty but our mental age is twenty. We are the people that they
come to
for new ideas. We are not ridged in our thought processes.
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