What are some cautionary tales of people who grew bitter with age? I recently saw old footage of someone i knew who looked happy and full of life. But 40 years later, they seem resentful, angry, or withdrawn. Bitterness is my worst fear.
What are some cautionary tales of people who grew bitter with age? I recently saw old footage of someone i knew who looked happy and full of life. But 40 years later, they seem resentful, angry, or withdrawn. Bitterness is my worst fear.
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You tell us. What do you know about this person? What is their relationship to you? What kind of “old footage”?
Illness
Death
Betrayal
Isolation
Some ideas.
“Footage” doesn’t show a full life.
most of the old bitter people I know, drove everyone else away with their hateful and deceitful ways. In short they were always bitter people
My worst fears are things I can’t control.
If I’m bitter, resentful etc. it’s my own fault, because I get to control how I react to life.
I (60M) think about this a lot – because I tilt towards "glass half empty" and have been treated for depression .
However, I’m feeling great!
Of course it is a complex issue, and there will always be biological/social components to this, but years ago I began to suspect that how someone lives their life might might have an impact on their personality when they are old and look back on it. If someone looks back and feels regret – for decisions made, roads not taken, giving into others, etc – it might make them angry when those opportunities are go and they realize all the thing that might have been.
I made a conscience decision after I was in college, to try and make the most of my life, take chances that scared me and never turn down an opportunity to grow…… I never wanted a corporate job…..wanted to travel….etc…… Now, looking back, my wife and I aren’t rich but we should be able to retire in a few years……but most importantly, I love the life I look back on…..not everything turned out and there was hurt along the way…..but in the end, I am proud of the life I have tried to live…….and that makes me a pretty content, if not out right happy, old person.
Live your life for you. Treat others well. Know what your dreams are and pursue them, but know that the pursuit is more important that the goal……… and generally, don’t be a dick to those around you
Your friend may not have been as happy as they looked then or as unhappy as they look now. You can’t know someone without taking the time to know them. Taking time with people is a great way to avoid bitterness. The cautionary tale here is to avoid making superficial snap judgments about people.
I used to be a fairly sarcastic person, complaining, and bitter at times. I saw someone like me in a film, and it bothered me a lot. I decided to change. Honestly, the gratitude stuff seems hokey, but it is what worked for me. Noticing beautiful things, acts of kindness, and feeling thankful totally changed my perspective so that being a kind and caring person became my default.
Bad marriage. Missed career/individuation opps.
You become an age where life stops giving you things and starts taking them away.
This is a line from some terrible movie, but it’s true.
Get knocked down enough, grieve to many loved ones, get betrayed by someone who claims to love you the most, work hard for decades, and barley get by.
It can make some folk bitter.
If you don’t already have a high degree of self awareness, then become as self aware as you can.
People who can see themselves objectively can recognize their own responsibility for many of the things that happen in their life.
People without that ability will tend to put all the blame for their misfortunes on others and society.
That has a major part in whether you can accept your situation and move forward, or whether you just get angrier and angrier.
So your angry, spiteful friend is probably just more or less oblivious to their own culpability, and sees themself as the victim. And they can’t get over it.
Here are a few reasons it can play out that way:
The key to not being bitter as one gets older is to avoid all three of the above. The world probably isn’t out to get you unless you’re so important that it’s a possibility. If you made mistakes in life, so what? Anyone who says they’ve never made a mistake is a liar. And you’re entitled to nothing. You will lose jobs for no fault of your own. You will lose loved ones, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. You might be born into a time when economic hardship hits at the worst possible time in your life. You might be doing everything right and get cancer or get crippled by a drunk driver.
Accepting the uncertainties of life and having confidence of your ability to overcome and keep finding joy in life is what keeps you from becoming bitter.
Maybe they are in constant pain. Have you asked them how they feel?
You can focus your fear on bitterness if you choose. What you put out comes back, eventually.
Or you can focus your energy on joy, appreciation, gratitude, and making others happy too.
Your choice…
Be careful that healthy skepticism doesn’t turn into cynicism. Cynicism is the logic that feeds bitterness.
Watch as people move along that arc.
Lack of flexibility/resiliance and belief that bad things could happen to you. Example: If you believe that you could lose your job at any time because no one is that valuable to a corporation and you think through what the next steps would be if you were suddenly laid off, then you are ready and less likely to become bitter because life doesn’t go your way.
Same with if you never consider you might really, truly lose the person you love the most to sudden death, or get paralyzed or any of the other terrible things can happen. The people I’ve seen be the most bitter are people that didn’t prepare for the realities of possible futures. They come as a surprise and people think, "I don’t deserve this terrible thing" or "why did it happen to me." If you know if might, at literally any moment, you still won’t be happy about it, but likely not as bitter as those who never prepare of think it couldn’t happen.
I wonder how much diet has manifested in people’s attitudes. Fluoride, sugar, high fructose syrup, dyes, pollution, food chemicals. etc. I was watching a medical conference by physicians discussing Alzeheimer’s and Dementia on line. The brain was thought to be sterile but now it’s known to have it’s own microbiome like the intestines do, but different bacteria. They are finding people with dementia and Parkinson’s have the same bacteria in the brain as is in their mouth which isn’t beneficial. Suspecting the bacteria getting from poor dental care into the blood stream to the brain. Could that be a precursor to personality change? It’s going to be interesting if this can be researched.
I’m a Hospice RN currently working with Pediatric Hospice but in the past worked with adult Hospice. So many times I’d not get to know my patients well as they were at the end of life and not so responsive but I’d get a glimpse into their lives by the family and friends that surrounded them. Maybe that’s an indicator into their life but maybe not. some patients had loads of visitors and others simply had none. Many times when we’d contact next of kin about the death we’d be shouted at that they didn’t care about their mother or father and stop calling them. Others had a room full and more of people wanting to be near them at death. I worked in an AIDS unit 35 years ago and families would dump the patients off on the sidewalk for us to find when we walked out of the building, they just couldn’t care.
What’s the indicator, maybe this or that. I’ve noticed so many towards the very end get a wonderful peace in their face, a smile, a releasing and letting go and opening up in preparation for their next great step forward into a new life. Maybe it’s all a lesson to go through in life in preparation to the next adventure. Maybe it’s from the environment, personality, brain waves, beliefs that may serve or eat them but they hang on to them anyway, missed opportunities to let go and grow, share and uplift and take some time to enjoy the world they are in now. Maybe it’s a bit of all of it.
I found my best lessons in life were learned when I was in a crisis, or what felt like a crisis at the time. That caused me to move forward, drop ides that no longer served me and adapt accordingly. Maybe others choose a different response. My mom bought an old vase in an auction once, very elaborate with the top of the vase screwed on. One days she unscrewed the top and found out it wasn’t a vase after all but a cremation urn with someone in it. My poor mom was HORRIFIED she had bought someone. Mom did a mediation and got the name Pearl so the ashes in the urn were now named. We had her by the Christmas tree every year, celebrations, on a mantle in full view and mom carried Pearl in the front seat of the car when she moved.
After my parents died I don’t know what happened to Pearl. She was like one of the family as I grew up. Now that I’m older I think of this and wonder about things in my own life I somehow take responsibility for that really I don’t need to. Like my mom feeling responsible for the ashes so she cared for them for 20 years. Sometimes we hold on to beliefs we had at one time that were wrong, or no longer matter and keep holding on to them because they’ve become familiar but in reality they no longer have a purpose in our lives. maybe some grow older hanging on to old bones that someone else let go of long ago. Like Pearl, mom hung on to those bones for a long time.
Nice you have the insight to see in others what you don’t want to become and see what you do want to become. It will be interesting to see what you’ve devised in your life to create the path you will follow. So many options to choose.
Life is challenging and difficult and it throws a lot of shit at you. I personally think that bitterness comes from not dealing with your crap when it comes along, and, succumbing to constant negative self talk. (Would you talk to your child or your best friend the way you speak to yourself?) Ultimately, the only thing we can control is our reactions to things and yeah, sometimes, shit is rough and it knocks you arse up, but, you have a choice now. Get up, dust off, and work through it, (Boss level hard) or, let it define you. (hard but with a shit outcome)
I’m 71. I never wanted to be a bitter old man. I have more dead loved ones than living ones. 1 son committed suicide. 1 wife died from cancer.
I’ve been screwed cheated, fooled, deceived, hungry, cold, homeless with kids.
And through it all, I’ve remained grateful and appreciative of the beauty and life around d me. L
I’ve tried to spread a little joy around me as I go.
Some.e days just sitting in the sun is enough.
Menopause made me feel homicidal, but the prozac took the edge off nicely 😎🤔
Bitterness is just regret.
Mine too. I would hate to spend the last years of my life angry and bitter.
I work with a lot of people who are 70+ and it seems like the people who are angriest are those who feel left out or left behind. People who don’t have a computer or a smart phone and are upset that everything is online. People who want to listen to music but won’t stream or download music. People who just kind of stopped learning or growing or adapting and are upset that the world didn’t stop when they did.
I’m 70. Happy
My mother. My father left her after 28 years of marriage. She chose bitterness. She never let it go. She lived into her 90s. I finally had to go no contact with her. She was toxic to begin with. So it was just amplified by her anger and hurt. She was awful.
I’ll be honest, life can be difficult sometimes. As you get towards the last quarter of your life a lot of experiences have been saddening. You’re starting to have to say goodbye to a lot of people. But most of us are capable of battling on through hard days.
I believe one of the worst things for us is isolation. Isolation probably sharply increases the likelihood not only of depression, but actual dementia. If you can maintain at least a few relationships you are likely going to be functioning somewhat better as you get older. If you have close relationships, it should help keep the bitterness at bay.
Even with full blown Alzheimer’s, all my mother really talked about was how much she hated her father. And my father.
Holding on to the hatred of youth will destroy you. Life is definitely hard. But you can’t let it crush you.
It happens to some with age. You lose your friends, family, maybe money, definitely your knees. Old age is not fun every day.
Embrace the person accept the change… they most likely have no idea they have changed.
Most of the posts in this thread serve as cautionary tales:
I was in a distinct minority in finding it easier to allow people the grace to be flawed, and — as long as they expressed opinions, and not executive orders — to not feel threatened by them. As Robinson Jeffers put it:
>Still the mind smiles at its own rebellions,
Knowing all the while that civilization and the other evils
That make humanity ridiculous, remain
Beautiful in the whole fabric, excesses that balance each other
Like the paired wings of a flying bird.
I was a really bitter angry miserable sarcastic teenager and honestly it sucked. I had legitimate reasons to feel that way, I was trapped in an abusive household with no support, my life was profoundly unfair, I had no legitimate freedom and I let that circumstance control me in some really bad ways that led to some really unsafe, dysfunctional, unhealthy stuff.
Once I got out of that situation (left home and never looked back) I was still a really bitter, angry, miserable, sarcastic person even though my circumstances had changed and it was HARD to get out of that. I had internalized this belief that everything was shit, everything was hopeless, and I had no control over my life so why bother even trying? I had to learn how to be a functional person mostly on my own and it took a lot of therapy to get into a better place.
My motto became "choose joy" which means in ANY situation when joy is an option choose that option no matter what else is going on. It’s about perspective or attitude, in a shit situation I can choose to focus on how awful all the shit is making me feel or I can find something even the tiniest bit joyful and focus on that instead. It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring that the shit stuff is there or pretending everything is sunshine and rainbows it means that I’m going to acknowledge the shit stuff and then move on from that to something else rather than drowning in the shit feelings and letting that keep me from experiencing the joy that does exist. A lot of times when people think they’re being "realistic" by focusing on misery they actually aren’t being realistic they’re actively ignoring the positive things bc they’re too trapped in misery to even see that they exist at all. There’s nothing realistic about drowning in misery and denying joy, they both exist.
One example I like to use of this is a time when I was on the ferry coming home (hour long ride) and I fumbled my entirely full water bottle and spilled 32oz ALL OVER myself. So I was soaked all the way through, cold, wet, miserable, and I had a full hour of that misery before I got home. It would be really easy to drown in that feeling. But I moved to a different seat and when I did that I discovered a lady bug who had gotten trapped on the ferry and was frantically seeking an exit. I put the lady bug in my now empty water bottle, brought it home, and released it in my garden. I chose to focus on how nice I felt rescuing that ladybug from dying on the ferry (where no food was available) rather than choosing to focus on my misery.
Drowning in the misery wouldn’t have made me feel any better, but finding something joyful to focus on did. And I wouldn’t have found that bug if I hadn’t moved seats so even though I was wet and cold and miserable it led to something nice and it just is so much better to go through life choosing joy when it’s available rather than ignoring joy just bc something miserable happened. There are always miserable and joyous things coinciding with each other and shifting my focus away from fixation on misery has helped so so much in so many ways.
It’s a choice. Or a mental illness maybe. In my old age I am happy and optimistic and try to be loving and kind. Most of my life I was an anxious depressed basket case and I figured that’s just my personality and I will end up hypercritical of everything and everybody especially my children, just like my mother who died miserable at 101 and a half. But life experiences have really changed me. My husband died young, leaving me broke and with a bunch of little kids to raise. Years later when the kids were all finally launched, I was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. Treatment and recovery was absolute torture and took two years, leaving me with some minor disabilities. Somehow, just surviving two of the worst things my pessimistic mind could and did imagine made me able to appreciate just how good my life is. I actually like myself now, maybe from realizing that I am strong and resilient. My 70s are turning out to be the best years yet.
You a bot?
4 years of 🍊🤡💩, Covid impacting life and my business, diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing 2 years of treatment (and now 5 more years of pills), and now 🍊🤡💩is back, trying to kill us all.
These last 10 years have been tough for me. I kind of get it. I’m scared for a repeat of what I went thru before, but far worse. I just want a calm existence without worrying about my life continually being put in danger. It’s a hard mindset to break out of. 🤷🏼♀️
Always, always be true to who you are. Don’t the to fit into anyone else’s mood. There will be no bitterness. And love who you genuinely are! We honestly, break our own hearts with bending for others expecting they will do the same
I don’t have any cautionary tales, maybe some advice? I definitely have bitterness in me, but my nearly pathological curiosity always wins out. I can always learn something new. And I love learning new things about people. (Not in a nosy way.) It IS getting frustrating that my memory is getting so bad! Maybe if it gets bad enough I’ll get to relearn the same things every day.
What are some of the personality traits that were your strongest when you were a kid? What activities did you like then?
I had friends who drank too much in their 50ʻs when I met them. They called it social drinking, but when you continually find ʻboxesʻ of wine in the fridge, bottles in the trash, and they go through several in a week, itʻs alcoholism. They continued drinking and it literally killed one and the other is in and out of hospitals with a huge liver, and needs constant blood infusions. When they really needed the people who could help them the most, they had alienated them, and they have never quite regained trust in those relationships.
It’s called, "Getting Old", happens to everyone. Some worse than others. But oldness is just a series of large losses, never to be retrieved.
The most bitter people i know are those who lost their sense of whimsy. They put away "childish things" because they were told that it was time to grow up. They lost their sense of inappropriate humor. Hold on to those things that make you belly laugh. Binge watch Scooby Doo. Collect toys. Color with crayons. Put a plastic flamingo in your garden. If it puts joy in your heart, do it twice. Don’t let the bitter win.
My dad and his older sister were so much alike in earlier years, but diverged in personality as they aged.
My dad became defensive about his life decisions and ridiculed people who had lived different lives. He’d always been a moderate, compassionate Republican conservative, but became "Team GOP" [although his life experiences should have led him to think differently. For example, his work mentor in the 1960s, to whom he owed his successful career, was a closeted gay man. He admired and respected this man, but in his old age, would go (literally!) "YUCK!" any time gay people came up in conversations].
His sister, on the other hand, right up until her death at 88, remained open to new ideas, read incessantly, loved to discuss new concepts, debated her own and others’ beliefs, and even got into social media. She accepted my gay niece, our transgender cousin, took care of great-great-niblings so they didn’t get taken by CPS when their parents made wretchedly stupid decisions, and made everyone feel that they were the most important person in the universe.
I believe the difference is that at some point, my dad made the decision, "This is it. My personality is fully formed. I don’t need or want to learn anything else or change my opinions. I’m set." And so he was. No new ideas could make their way in.
His sister did the opposite. She wanted new information, to know how the world was evolving, to keep her mind open and alert. She would scoff at the phrasing, but she was woke. She had a posse of niblings, and loved talking to us and getting our perspectives on things. Then she’d talk to her husband about new concepts or new ways of looking at beliefs, and they’d discuss it some more.
I want to be like my aunt as I age, not stuck in a rut of long-held opinions. I want to keep up with what’s going on, to marvel at the changes, and learn from people younger than myself. I want to stay open to the world around me, as my father did not, and I believe that is what eventually made him bitter.