We\u00a0baby boomers are in a pickle. We love our electronic devices but they cause us\u00a0major angst because we weren\u2019t born with an iPad in our hands. I \u00a0call us the\u00a0\u201cin- betweeners,\u201d late to the party and a little bit slow on the uptake when it\u00a0comes to technological savvy. And then, when we finally figure it out, we\u2019re\u00a0leery about using Facetime and Zoom because we think we look wizened on the\u00a0screen. When we were in our twenties, we vowed to never get old and we actually
believed that was possible. Now, there are many millions of us in our
seventies, we have aches and pains we\u2019re not prepared for, and the constant\u00a0look of surprise on our faces is more than bad Botox.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0part of me is stunned to be aging, as if it were a bad choice I made. I\u2019m suffering\u00a0from a strange epidemic that I call \u201cthe Baby Boomer Blues,\u201d a disappointment\u00a0about how things turned out. About how we turned out. About where we\u2019re headed.\u00a0But when you compare what we expected with what we actually got, it\u2019s a wonder
any of us can function at all:\u00a0<\/p>\n
# When we were young and carefree, we vowed never to trust anyone over thirty. Here\u00a0we are, in our sixties and seventies.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We judged anyone who didn\u2019t have long hair. Today a lot of us are going bald.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We used to take LSD and psylocibin mushrooms to uplift our moods and feel\u00a0better about our world. Now we take Prozac and Xanax.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We touted psychedelics as mind expanding. Now we do everything we can to stop\u00a0\u00a0our grand children from using them.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We women grew the hair under our arms and on our legs because we wanted to be\u00a0\u201cnatural.\u201d Now we\u2019re having it waxed and lasered off, all over our bodies.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We used to live in communes with friends whom we called extended family. Now we isolate in private rooms with our heads perpetually stuck in our electronic\u00a0devices.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We used to drop by unannounced to visit the people we loved. Now we text each\u00a0other to make an appointment to talk on the phone.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0We used to fall in love by gazing into each other\u2019s eyes. Now we have\u00a0technological romances with people we\u2019ve never met.<\/p>\n
I\u00a0used to believe that if I was a good person and treated other people with\u00a0kindness, I\u2019d have peace and love and everything would be alright. I\u2019d get my\u00a0happily ever after. But that isn\u2019t the way it goes. Bad things happen to good\u00a0people and I have to learn to accept what is right here, right now and manage\u00a0it as best I can. \u00a0<\/p>\n
According\u00a0to Buddhist teachings, the first Noble Truth\u201d is the acknowledgment that there\u00a0is suffering in the world. We distract ourselves from it by chasing excitement\u00a0and instant gratification, but when we slow down and stop running, we see that\u00a0our suffering is still there, waiting for us. We\u2019re slowly discovering that the\u00a0only way out of it is to adopt \u201cthe Middle Way,\u201d the path between the extremes
of highs and lows. This creates a predicament because the idea of accepting\u00a0suffering as a reality, causes me suffering. And the only method of deliverance\u00a0seems to be the arduous task of practicing constant awareness and mindfulness.\u00a0I keep on trying.<\/p>\n
Back\u00a0in the day, most of us meant well. We cared about the world and we rejected and redefined traditional values with activism, social change and freedom from a\u00a0rigid past. We wanted to make a difference and leave our world a little bit\u00a0better than when we got here. We believed in the American Dream and we were
willing to work hard to achieve it. We focused on personal growth and when\u00a0someone passed away, we celebrated their life with a memorial service instead\u00a0of wearing black at a funeral. We immersed ourselves in creating beauty and we\u00a0believed that everything and anything was possible.<\/p>\n
No\u00a0matter how we lived and what we believed, in the words of rock and roll idol\u00a0and poet, Jim Morrison, \u201cNo one gets out of here alive.\u201d Whether it happens\u00a0with a loud bang or a dull thud, whether we go out like a lion or a lamb, the\u00a0time will come when all of us boomers have left the building. While society\u00a0will define our treasured objects like typewriters, answering machines and ice\u00a0cube trays as \u201cquaint,\u201d I hope that our philosophies and rituals will be seen\u00a0as meaningful and worth hanging onto. It would be nice to be remembered for
leaving behind something that matters, for bringing light into a world gone\u00a0mad. That\u2019s how it looks to me, but maybe it was always this way. Maybe planet\u00a0earth has always been a battlefield and our job has always been to embrace our\u00a0small piece of the puzzle and leave an impression that will bring a smile to a\u00a0loved one\u2019s face and help them navigate the choppy waters after we step off the\u00a0boat.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0my years of seeking truth and compassion, I\u2019ve come to understand that after\u00a0I\u2019m gone, I\u2019ll have no control over how people remember me and what mattered to\u00a0me. I can only hope that when I\u2019m no longer here, people will think or a\u00a0moment and say, \u201cShe didn\u2019t have any answers but she sure had some interesting
questions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u00a0baby boomers are in a pickle. We love our electronic devices but they cause us\u00a0major angst because we weren\u2019t born with an iPad in our hands. I \u00a0call us the\u00a0\u201cin- betweeners,\u201d late to the party and a little bit slow on the uptake when it\u00a0comes to technological savvy. And then, when we finally figure it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2671,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2670\/revisions\/2671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}