Though everyone on the earth is bound to become older, people often shudder to discuss about it. It is like an ostrich, shoving its head in the sand when confronted with anything unpleasant.
Many researches are being done on various aspects of problem being encountered in old age, ratio of old age people, how much life expectancy has increased over time and how much it has contributed to the increased number of old age people, etc etc. This is indeed necessary but besides this, we should also think about what best we can do for old age people individually.
Even if we think selfish, this is necessary, because we will get only what we saw today. This is like creating a culture where upon everyone around us respect them, respect their past contribution to the society, respect the knowledge they acquired in their lives, respect their skill and also respect their experience.
We should make them comfortable so that they can continue their last journey with ease and mental peace. It is fact that the status of Old Age people is different from society to society, culture to culture and from country to country, but their fundamental issues do not change. They often feel ignored, isolated, disrespected and eventually put into a situation where they feel helpless and start thinking of death.
Secondly, on one hand we are struggling to protect our intellectual property rights, especially in the age of internet, and on the other hand we let our invaluable intellectual inheritance to die out with the death of an old age person. Why we should not take benefits of their experience, skill and knowledge and thus make them feel important to us.
I had expressed my concerned in Linked-in Social Networking and I have received following comments from the readers that I am sharing:
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(1)
A lot of senior citizens have great skills and knowledge acquired over the years.
Often they are retired because of compulsory or mandatory age restrictions. They may still be eager and able to tackle complex challenges in their respective fields.
Society should be able to utilize that grey matter to compensate for shortcomings which sometimes are difficult to overcome.
Senior citizens should be given the opportunity to continue being useful otherwise they falter and die.
The following might be a wobbly comparison but it is the one that readily comes to my mind under these circumstances:
We have recently awakened to the benefits of recycling a multitude of objects, tools and used components in our lives.
Maybe we should also put together a strong infrastructure to recycle human abilities and skills … and then maybe I’m dreaming…
Pierre Jones
(2)
Keep them active.
Keep them involved.
Refuse to write them off.
Refuse to assume that their insights, expertise, knowledge, and approaches to solving problems are outdated.
Michael A. Keane
(3)
Use reverse mortgages and organizations (AARP- strength in numbers) to elevate them to a new status: consumers with purchasing power. So companies will have to make stuff ergonomic for them, they will be listened to and taken seriously, in fact paid as consultants since no one seems to remember a lot of stuff from their era that we can’t afford to lose.
Prevent knowledge from dying out… There are tasks we (current generation) no longer remember how to do. I was talking to someone yesterday, it’s hard to find someone who can do those curly designs on houses anymore…
Make it simple for them to narrate information and pay them to do it; show what happens if that info is lost in graphic and mediapathic ways.
I saw a Stanley Steamer built in 1923 with 600,000 miles on it and running fine.
mike
Mike Lee
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Pankaj Trivedi
Tags: Experience, Knowledge, Old Age People, Skill, Social Responsibility