I feel like I haven’t been experiencing as many striking, surprising, or “oh?!” moments compared to previous weeks. This in itself is a bit surprising to me. Perhaps because a lot of my older age myths have been debunked and I’ve thought about many older-age-related things, I’m plateau-ing a bit on the shock factor? I took some time to reflect on my perceptions of older age recently, and how it compares to 7 weeks ago. It doesn’t feel that drastic of a change, but it’s certainly quite different now. I feel more at peace with the idea of older age and death, I live my daily life with more lightness, I see the world in terms of age friendliness for all ages, I hold older couples with more compassion, and I’m more excited to naturally develop into older ages. A lot more peace. I feel neither a desire to go back to younger ages, nor a desire to rush into older ages. At the same time, I’m excited to enter a new life stage after graduating this Spring, yet I feel content in my day-to-day life and where I am right now. I think I’ve reached a new level of living in the present, from having a better relationship with older age (and later on, death).
I realized from this, how much a person’s perception can change in a few weeks, as well as how influential experiential learning is. My perception has changed from lectures, discussions, observation, and on the various visits and projects we engaged in. But, experiential learning (specifically going out into the community) is where I arguably learned the most implicitly. It’s less of a stream of information coming towards me, and more so being enveloped in thousands and millions of lessons, where I can absorb anything I’m open to noticing. I’ve come to appreciate experiential learning even more after this class, as I realize over time how much I’ve learned without even realizing. And on a grander scale, how much I learn simply by being alive everyday.
Going forwards, I aim to continue learning about older age and sharing what I learn with others. I’m sure that once I start to enter older age myself, a lot more things I first heard from this class will click/I’ll understand things more deeply. Right now, I find myself trying to put myself in others’ shoes to try to understand what life is like for them at their stage, but once it’s me directly experiencing it, I’m sure I’ll realize so much more. I’m excited for what more I have to realize in the near future, and farther future as an older adult. Life is truly silly and profound.
I realized from this, how much a person’s perception can change in a few weeks, as well as how influential experiential learning is. My perception has changed from lectures, discussions, observation, and on the various visits and projects we engaged in. But, experiential learning (specifically going out into the community) is where I arguably learned the most implicitly. It’s less of a stream of information coming towards me, and more so being enveloped in thousands and millions of lessons, where I can absorb anything I’m open to noticing. I’ve come to appreciate experiential learning even more after this class, as I realize over time how much I’ve learned without even realizing. And on a grander scale, how much I learn simply by being alive everyday.
Going forwards, I aim to continue learning about older age and sharing what I learn with others. I’m sure that once I start to enter older age myself, a lot more things I first heard from this class will click/I’ll understand things more deeply. Right now, I find myself trying to put myself in others’ shoes to try to understand what life is like for them at their stage, but once it’s me directly experiencing it, I’m sure I’ll realize so much more. I’m excited for what more I have to realize in the near future, and farther future as an older adult. Life is truly silly and profound.