After I recently played a card game with friends, we soon began visiting about how things have changed over the years. The price of gas, party telephone lines shared by multiple families, first cars, first jobs and the like.
What began as reminiscing soon turned into complaining — with some of the usual lines:
- “Young people these days don’t appreciate…”
- “Back in my day, we would…”
- “When I was my grandkids’ age, I had to…”
- “If I said what kids say these days, I would have been…”
- “Do kids these days even know how to…”
Now, of course, sharing memories can be a positive thing — something that sparks productive conversation and teaches valuable lessons for those around us, hopefully including our family. But the heart out of which we do it matters.
And it can be easy to share memories out of a somewhat jaded sense of critique of the present. Invoking the past can be a way to contrast a world that felt manageable, predictable and human-centric with a modern landscape that frequently feels impersonal and transactional.
While referring to “how things used to be” can serve as a critique, it can also relegate us to a bygone era. Cranky dinosaurs, some would say.
Pearls of wisdom or lumps of coal?
The tendency to look backward is typically viewed by others with impatience rather than curiosity. Since the delivery of these comments is often wrapped in a layer of grumbling, it can be readily dismissed.
“Here we go again,” I hear my kids and grandkids say, barely under their breath. What I think are pearls of wisdom, they see as lumps of coal.
“Kids these days don’t appreciate anything that’s not digital,” my friends said around the table. “They don’t have to work for things like we did.”
Such complaining among older people can often spill over into daily life. Before we know it, we are complaining about lots of other things. Crankiness becomes our most common characteristic.
- “The neighborhood kids play their music too loud. They will all be deaf before they are 30.”
- “A guy honked at me the moment the light turned green, then shouted at me to ‘Move it, Gramps’ as he whizzed by. ’Why are you in such a hurry?!’ I shouted back.”
- “I had to wait forever at the doctor’s office. They are never on time.”
- “Why are they always having upgrades on my Smart TV? I can’t even change my TV remote anymore … I need to get a grandson to help me.”
Why we complain
Crankiness and pessimism have a common root cause stemming from a feeling that life is passing us by and there is nothing we can do about it. While not unique to older people — there are plenty of grumpy teens and young adults — it is more common among us than younger folks. We may feel that we are out of step, out of touch and out of time.
Some have argued that we are “wired to complain,” reflecting a kind of natural process that promotes social bonding, helps us avoid danger and even gives us a dopamine rush.
I’m skeptical. It goes with being over age 70, I suppose.
“I don’t know about that,” is among the frequent phrases I catch myself using quite often, like others my age. It was even highlighted in a popular Saturday Night Live skit a few years ago.
Could such skepticism sometimes be healthy, guarding against fraudulent spam calls and unproven medical remedies?
For sure. But surely it can also be dysfunctional — leading us to see shysters everywhere and alienating us from others.
Can we tell the difference? When is skepticism about our present day “better safe than sorry” and when is it a roadblock to embracing the future?
There is an old saying that “even a hypochondriac is right some of the time” — but when and at what cost to others?
Three solutions to the grumpiness
In a day when scams abound and older people are often unwitting victims, how can older people avoid becoming cynical and suspicious about too much?
How can we also avoid being cranky toward everyone and about everything, worried that all the world is going to “hell in a handbasket” and we are the only ones who see it?
- Start with curiosity. What’s this all about — this medical treatment, this technological innovation, this neighborhood initiative?
- Ask questions, get evidence. Get firsthand data rather than relying on just someone else’s say-so.
- Get a second opinion from a trusted source. Slowing down can avoid mistakes and even speed up good decision-making.
Reversing to a more positive mindset isn’t to suddenly become Pollyanna (no one under 30 has seen the film anyway) or see “all rainbows and unicorns,” as younger people say today. Instead, it means recognizing the physical and emotional toxicity involved in complaining and pessimism — in both ourselves and others.
While complaining can feel like a release or somehow useful, it often quickly deepens our frustration or dissatisfaction.
And it makes the bad feelings more real. The more we say something, the more likely we are to believe it. Called the “saying-is-believing effect,” the more we complain, the more likely we are to believe our complaints regardless of the evidence.
Instead of being just a shutter against the modern world, the phrase “in my day” can become a positive method to compare and contrast the past and the present with some grace and good humor. Then, it can become a learning invitation rather than an irrelevant opinion.
Overcoming crankiness starts with assuming good intent in others, appreciating genuinely what is new and different, and navigating an uncharted future with curiosity and a sense of sincere wonder.