Getting on with it! Strength to Change and Grow!

Are we born with innate strength, or does the way we grew up, bring it out?This may be a very thought provoking statement. Is there no simple answer.Here we are again, into the middle of December, 2023, and another week of a busy life of an 89 year old senior.This episode is about me going on “my Soap Box”, and in case, some of you younger folks don’t know what a “Soap Box”, is /was, a means used something, from years gone by, where you could stand on a wooden crate, and be heads above the daily crowd.The “soap box” provided a verbal outlet, for delivering opinions, not necessarily facts“, way before technology, and the current various platforms ever even existed, for broadcast, such as I doing with this Podcast!The “Modern soap Box”, as such in these days!The general attitude of those over a “certain age”, I.e. over 70 years of age, are often consider, “too old to change”! I do not believe that!I started a brand new employment “gig”, at age 60, moving east, to Kentucky, from California, where I have lived most of my life.The “gig, or job as we seniors say”, was to companion two “healthy Seniors”, the family thought, and rightly so, they needed some help with, housekeeping, cooking, and mostly getting here and there, to the doctors, appointments, church and so forth.In time, I was employed by the Eastern Kentucky University, working some part time, but full time eventually, and was still helping out with the ladies, as needed, while finishing my college experience with two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts, and Master Degree at age 76! Change and growth can and does happen!We “seniors” aren’t any different than any age, maybe not as agile, as some of us used to be, but if we are healthy mentally, we can and do change ourselves, and our lives, bringing in new perspective, to the generations following.We know of folks in their 80’s, still taking hikes and walks,, yes and long distance bicycling trips! You younger folks would have a time “keeping up”We are still vital, active people, well worth your admiration and above, all respect, as we have and do live, full lives, in what ever our situation allows!My brother, was a major news journalist in sports news writing, and is his 91 years of age, and still attends, as an honored guest, the Indianapolis 500 Race, in Indianapolis, as he has every year, since he was a very young man!He was an active news journalist, up until just a few years ago, putting out a well documented and respected sport quarterly news Journal,Our generation has overcame many established ideas of what is, or was, expected of us, individually, and collectively, as to the places in life, we “should fill”!Back during those years of WW II, my mother and her husband where active newspapers reporters, my mom was able to crossed the “established rule, “women wrote only about social things”, according to the news industries, never news”, and she became a full fledged newspaper reporter!Did she change the world she was living in, yes I’d say she did!Our generation went to the moon, and we can now fly, all over the world, at the drop of a bucket "full of money, of course" if we choose.My first long airplane flight was 1954 in a propelled plane going to Hawaii to live a few years!Our return trip to California, two years later, was my first time I’d flown in a jet propelled plane! In just two years!Is that change, I should think so!Did we change anything in our world, yes we did, individually and collectively!We all became stronger in many ways! We can and do, continue to live out our lives, as well respected persons, regardless of our “age”!As I used to tell my kids, “just get on with it “! They did and I did!