AGING IS AN ART: I’m Sorry

As an elder Baby Boomer, I want and need to apologize.

I could list the various generations, but let me simplify and address my apology to all current and future-not-yet-named-generations that are dealing with or will have to deal with the consequences of my actions or, more often, my lack of actions.

I am sorry. I am sorry for the role that I played in not helping to bring about early aggressive and affective actions on climate change. I apologize that you have to consider climate change when thinking about having children. I apologize for the amount of time and energy you will have to expend dealing with a warming planet.

I apologize for the state of income inequality that you find yourself having to cope with. I apologize for my role in tolerating or enacting policies and economic shifts that have burdened you with significant student debt and have negatively impacted your entry into an unaffordable housing market.

I apologize for my inclination to give outdated advice and for my inability to actively listen to your concerns — to learn from you. I apologize for not letting go of the spaces of expression, autonomy and influence that should rightfully be yours. Spaces (the average age of our national elected officials comes to mind) you could be using to advance and express your unique world vision and mindset.

I offer no justifications or defensive explanations. I take full responsibility.

Before my fellow Boomers object and find it necessary to once again extole the virtues of having grown up in the 1960s, let me unequivocally state that my affinity for apology and the acknowledgement of what I did wrong does not in any way diminish the pride I feel in what I did right.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

I like to think of myself as having that kind of “first-rate intelligence.” Given our current national climate and concern, it is that intelligence that finds my ability to function is greatly enhanced when I offer this apology.

I am almost 80 years old. I want to “function.” So I need to apologize.

In offering this apology and acknowledgement of what I did wrong, I hold the hope that some of my Boomer readers will join me and change my apology’s “I” to a “we.”

John Heckel, Ph.D., is a member of the Senior News Community Advisory Council and a retired HSU theatre and film professor with a doctorate in psychology.

Email: jh2@humboldt.edu.