Does Age Bring Wisdom?

Life experience can help.

Has wisdom hitched a ride with the hot flashes?

Do we acquire wisdom as we age? By the time we reach middle age, have we become more perceptive? Astute? Do we have more foresight and better judgment? Has wisdom hitched a ride with the hot flashes?

During a conversation with a friend about the wisdom of middle age, my initial thought was “not really.” Which is ridiculous. I have a lot more experience at 55 than I did at 15. That must result in measurable increases of perception, common sense, and judgment.

In my memory, I was always a thoughtful child and young adult. I thought four steps ahead as I guided my life. That is true, to a point.

My childhood was not as stable as some, more stable than others. I grew up feeling financially insecure, although I always had enough to eat. Looking back, I know my mother didn’t. She would eat a small portion, wait until I had finished eating, and then eat what remained on my plate. You could call it the poor, single mother’s diet.

Mom wanted, more than anything, freedom.

My mother’s life was hard, from my perspective. She had a different point of view. Mom wanted, more than anything, freedom. Freedom from anyone else telling her what to do. She was raised in a nuclear family. They attended a conservative Christian church and lived a Bible-focused life. She felt crushed by family rules and expectations. They micromanaged her life.

If a boy wasn’t from her specific religious background, she wasn’t allowed to date him. She told a sad, embarrassing tale of a nice Catholic boy asking her parents if they could have a date. They refused.

Mom wasn’t allowed to play Go Fish or Gin Rummy. She wasn’t allowed to go to the movies. Her parents required church attendance multiple days a week. The youth group was active, and she had friends with similar, if not as strict, backgrounds.

Mom enjoyed sports and other social events at school. She was even voted Class President. Someone else had to help plan school dances. They were on the prohibited list.

Mom built an adult life that gave her freedom, for the most part. There was a five-year period with an abusive husband in my childhood. She didn’t have freedom then. Her life did give a good example of how to subvert someone else’s controlling intent. It wasn’t an honest, open rebellion but we survived. That’s another story.

After she extracted us from the situation, she never again let anyone else tell her what to do. At 35 she grabbed me and ran. That sounds more exciting than it was.

The police were finally called. They arrested him for domestic violence. Once in the system, they found pending traffic violations and he was stuck in jail for a month. My mother used the time to pack up our belongings in a U-haul and move out of state.

When my friend brought up her idea that age equaled acquired wisdom, my thoughts flew to my mother. Did she look back on all those experiences in her later decades and feel wise? It is hard to speak with authority on someone else’s inner life, but my instinct is no.

My mother lived life as it came. There was no big plan except to be free. And to her, freedom meant no one telling her how to live her life.

Having such a different childhood meant I formed different goals. I accepted without question that my life was my own. Freedom of self-determination wasn’t something I had to fight for. It was a given. Freedom for me was feeling financially and emotionally secure.

I wasn’t worried about choosing the wrong sort of man. I could see the controlling types coming a mile away and they wanted no part of me. That is a form of wisdom since it came from experience. I had that wisdom young.

I made plenty of my own mistakes in my 20s and 30s, don’t get me wrong. A thread of perfectionism ran through my life. I didn’t expect others to be perfect, but I had very high expectations of myself. A brief session of therapy at 26 helped.

I had been stress vomiting before work a few times a week. My husband worried about my stress levels and asked me to seek help from a therapist. During the second, and final, appointment, the therapist asked if I knew who I was angry with.

“Yes,” I said, “Myself. I thought I was angry with the situation at work. I am angry with myself for putting up with it.” She declared me cured. I was. The vomiting stopped.

How had I not realized the stress was self-inflicted?

I think about that experience sometimes. The job wasn’t high paying. It wasn’t high status. Why did I stick with it? Why was it important not let it “break me?” Hearing the words out loud, it sounded crazy. How had I not realized the stress was self-inflicted?

I took that lesson into the rest of my life. I didn’t suddenly ease up. That would be a tidy tale, wouldn’t it? She had a moment of true self-reflection and was an evolved, perfect person afterward. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

I did move forward recognizing my inward, self-imposed perfectionist streak. I never thought I accomplished perfection, don’t get me wrong. I felt the compulsion to try. To try hard.

My divorce at 33 brought out every perfectionist impulse I had ever struggled with. I felt every decision I made during that time was loaded with the weight of the future for my children. Looking back, I wasn’t wrong. I wish I could have relaxed a little and recognized that people can only do their best. Errors are inevitable but most of them can be given a “do over.”

I didn’t make a lot of mistakes but the stress of it all was difficult. Eating was hard and 15 pounds dropped fast. Choking down a piece of buttered toast with a cup of hot tea three times a day is not a healthy diet. I slowly added in real food. I approached it the way I did everything else at that time. I needed to eat something healthy or I wouldn’t be able to think clearly and be a good parent.

Looking back from the vantage point of 20+ years, I try to find the wisdom gained. Knowing I was too hard on myself is a given, but what lesson did I learn? It took longer to learn I could only control my response, not other’s behavior. I already knew I was hard on myself. I already knew I was a survivor. My abusive step-father taught that lesson.

It is hard to determine the exact moment a lesson gels. Sometimes we can point to a moment and say, “Yes, that was my ‘aha’ moment.” Usually, the lessons are incremental and build over time.

The human condition is a work in progress. Hard to foresee a moment when I say “Now I am wise.” My thoughts and life are full of examples and experiences that add up to a cupful of wisdom. All I can hope is that the cup is bottomless, and I keep filling it.