Question: How can we use the wisdom of the elderly constructively as one invocation says?
Answer from the Ascended Master Mother Mary through Kim Michaels. This answer was given during the 2021 Webinar – Ending the Era of Ideology.
You can explain this in many different ways. If we take the current topic of ideology, you will see that there is a tendency that young people are the ones who become most enthusiastic about ideology. You will see, for example, that in the time when Marxism was a factor in European nations, many teenagers became pulled into the Marxist ideological mindset. And they were very enthusiastic about it for a time. But then as they grew older, gained more life experience, dealt with the harsh realities of making a living and raising a family, they moderated their views. They became less extreme, more pragmatic, more practical, more realistic, in a sense.
One way to use the wisdom of the elderly is certainly to balance the young people, and help them not go too far into ideological extremes, where the old people can point out that life just doesn’t work according to your ideology, as it didn’t work according to my ideology, the ideology I had when I was young. This would be one way. Older people have more experience with practical life and therefore often tend to take on a more pragmatic approach to life. They, of course, also have specific knowledge in specific fields.
It is clear that you often see, for example, that young people go to a university. They study a particular topic, they take in the ideas, the ideology, the mental images that are given in their field of study, they become very enthusiastic about it. They think that what they have received at university, for example, is the ultimate knowledge of the topic. Because that is what the teachers at universities think and project, at least many of them.
What could be used is to say: Why should a person who has been functioning, for example, as a doctor for his or her entire life, suddenly retire, and then live an isolated existence after retirement? Why shouldn’t these experienced doctors, come to the medical students, interact with them and share with them their experiences of what it actually means to be a doctor. The same could of course be transferred to any other field of human endeavor. Why would you have each new generation start over? Even though they do not always start exactly over. But why wouldn’t you have the new people in a field be able to draw upon the experiences of those who have been in the field for a time.
Now, of course, using the wisdom of the elderly needs to be done in a specific, realistic way. Because the fact of the matter is that while elderly people can gain experiences and become more pragmatic, there also is a tendency that sometimes elderly people become less flexible, less willing to experiment and they do not want to think about anything new. They just want to live out the rest of their lives, the way they have come to think that is comfortable and secure for them.
There can also be a tendency that older people are not as open to new ideas as young people. Clearly, that needs to be taken into consideration so that the older people do not discourage the young people from experimenting. But you understand here that when young people take the ideological approach, they are not actually experimenting, they are seeking to project the ideology onto how life works.
But you cannot go into the opposite extreme, either, of saying that young people should accept everything that is told to them by the older people. There needs to be that openness, flexibility of mind, because young people tend to have more flexible minds than older people. And there needs to be that willingness to experiment and allow that experimentation. As always, there is a balance to be found.
Copyright © 2021 Kim Michaels