My wife and I walked up to the counter at Golden Corral for Sunday brunch. She held out the money for the cashier as he quoted the price, but then he saw me coming up behind her, and instantly corrected himself, giving me the senior discount.
I was a little taken aback at this new reality. Although I’m still a few years shy of senior discount age, cashiers are beginning to offer it to me. I was a little shocked, maybe even a little insulted that he thought I was that old, but I took the discount anyway. Hey, a discount is a discount.
A few years ago, Mark Zuckerberg addressed an audience at Stanford, and famously said, “Younger people are just smarter.” Actually, they’re not smarter, just a little more arrogant than the rest of us who have reached an age that allows us to know better.
Getting old is hard work, and it seems that as we move through life, we continue to face challenges, questions, stereotypes and incorrect and sometimes offensive assumptions on the part of others. (Yes, I am an Old White Man with an Asian wife, and believe me, there are plenty of stereotypes and assumptions flying around. And no, I didn’t meet her in a bar.) When I was in my twenties, I thought surely that life would get easier. It doesn’t, we just learn to live with it better.
One thing I’m always amused at are the articles written about people when they turn 100. They are always asked, “what’s your secret?” And they typically respond by citing whatever it is they do in life as the secret to old age. George Burns claimed the secret was to smoke cigars every day. Others credit whiskey for the preservation of their bodies, and alternately, still others credit their abstinence from alcohol. Mostly, I think it’s a combination of good luck and staying out of trouble, and just being comfortable with whatever it is that makes you happy. I’m not about to give up my single malt Scotch whiskey, Bombay martinis and good dark beer.
Another thing that has gotten me this far is a concept I learned while living in Bangkok, and that is the sense of “jai yen.” This literally means “cool heart,” and the idea is to avoid conflict and anger. I think if I, as an old man, attempt to adhere to this concept, I may well make it to 100, no matter how many martinis and Cuban cigars there are in my future.
Maintaining a cool heart is not easy in the Internet world, where people are quick to anger, and quick to say things online that they probably wouldn’t say in person. And, as a public figure, readers do occasionally take exception to something I wrote. I have two responses: First, I don’t really care if what I said makes you angry, and I’m not going to change my mind. And second, I’m not going to engage in online battle with you. Those who spend far too much time online have lost the art of gentle persuasion and respectful disagreement, and the pure joy of having a conversation with someone who has a different viewpoint than your own. If you are in disagreement, have that discussion with a cool heart, and avoid raising your blood pressure. If you are able to disagree with someone and still enjoy sitting down and having a drink with them, then I believe you will add years to your life.
I’ve seen that hot-headedness (“jai ronn,” or hot heart) in business time and time again, and it’s reinforced and even praised. We often expect our leaders to have that quality, but what goes along with the stereotype of the hot-headed, fist-pounding boss? An early heart attack. To the contrary, being a good leader doesn’t require one to jump up and down until his eyes bulge out when something doesn’t go his way. Fortunately, more modern and sensible management theory is moving away from that model and towards one of listening, gaining cooperation from others, and understanding what motivates people to do what you want them to.
I hopefully still have a lot of old age left in me. For now, when clerks offer me that senior discount, I’m just going to smile and take the savings.
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