I am beginning to think that as we get older we get more stupid as it relates to other people. Or maybe it is just less tolerant of different ideas. Or we forget everything that we were taught as children because now we are adults and can make our own stupid decisions.
Maybe not more stupid, but more inwardly focused, narcissistic tendencies appear to be rampant these days.
It feels as if some of those in leadership have forgotten what we were taught as children. And you can’t tell me that you didn’t hear the following more than once as a child, or have taught your own child these things.
“Share. Did you just take that from (insert person name)? Give it back? You shouldn’t pick on people who are smaller than you?”
I can certainly say that my parents didn’t let me get away with stealing someone’s toys or picking on those who were smaller than me.
At what age do we begin to forget the values we are taught as children? And at what age do we start to believe that it is okay for adults in power to behave worse than we would allow our children to act?
I hope that I don’t forget the lessons that I am teaching my sons. I hope that I can live the way I am trying to teach them to live. I hope that I can always look back on my actions knowing that I did the best I could, stood up to things that I felt were unjust, and tried to change our culture to continue to act and be responsible to the lessons taught to us as children.
But it is hard to have ideals like this and live in the society of today. It seems that nothing is sacred anymore or really holds us to be responsible to society. It makes me sad that we have country leaders that have forgotten the basic concepts of being a good person. That they don’t seem to care about a moral responsibility to a greater good, only what makes them more money or will benefit themselves.
So much of the world seems to run on the concept of “do as I say not as I do”.
I am not perfect and have made many of these mistakes and will do so again as it is in our nature to make mistakes. The only thing I could hope for is that I learn from the mistakes and don’t continue to repeat the same ones.
And hope that from my example others also will see things differently. If not I guess I can just keep saying or thinking “if only we remembered the lessons we learned as children to treat others with respect and in a way we would enjoy being treated.”
The Adams-Schlag Family 
Interesting thoughts, Sabrina. I’ve been thinking about this lately, particularly the shift from idealism to practicality, as the pressures of security and longevity weigh more heavily as we age. In many ways, it is easy to be idealistic (what we say) but harder to be pragmatic (what we do). For me, it often comes down to having the energy and support to nurture my internal locus of control so that when it comes time to act, I have the mental and physical energy to align with my values—interested to learn more about how our environment shapes our ability to do this consistently.
Completely agree! It takes a great deal of energy to create the space for change. The ideal of what we want can be very hard to achieve when you are busy just getting from point A to point B. However, surrounding yourself with those who encourage reaching the ideal helps, hard though because your ideal may not be mine. I almost feel that sometimes our environments challenge our ability to reach the ideal because the environment’s ideal doesn’t entirely match your personal one.