My daughter graduated from college this past weekend (celebrating virtually, of course).  As a proud parent I’m so impressed with how hard she worked, how much she gained in both academic and personal knowledge, and how much more worldly she is at her age than I was.   Her education was so important in not only building a foundation of knowledge, but in challenging her thought processes and exposing her to new ideas.  It got me thinking about how at the tender age of 21 our formal education generally stops, but how our need for learning is actually lifelong.  Unfortunately as so many of us become comfortable with what we know and enjoy the confidence that  familiarity gives us, we may overlook the potential cost in becoming increasingly closed off to new ideas and inflexible to change.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of experience!  I use it every day in my work and sometimes feel a  bit like a fraud when my interns ask how I know something, thinking I’m so talented,  when it’s just that I’ve seen similar patterns or presentations so many times before.  But I do notice that as I get older I can become a bit complacent and set in my ways.  (Which, ironically, is actually part of why older people are happier according to research).  When I listen to young people challenge the status quo and question why things are as they have been, it’s a wake up call.  When I go to a protest organized by young people, it shakes up my acceptance of how things have to be. Inexperience has its advantages.  There is a freshness of opinion and a willingness to try something new.   There is definitely a trade off in having to tolerate discomfort when you are open to change, and I ask myself about this unease.  Change is scary.  Change brings uncertainty, and with change is the very good chance that you may be left behind or, worse yet, dismissed, or rejected.  

This last month has been a big lesson for me in the downsides of comfort, as I wonder how much my own comfort with how things have been stands in the way of someone else’s need for change.  As I look at so many of our leaders in Congress holding on to their seats well into their 80’s (but not you RBG!!), it does give me concern for how hard it is to change things when our leaders are so comfortable in their power and the style and leadership that keeps them there.  If ever there was a time to embrace the youthful vision of possibility and marry it with the wisdom of experience, it is now.  But in order to do so we must ask ourselves what are we afraid of?  Rather than shutting down the hope of change, we must support its energy and guide its direction.  We must look fear in the face and be willing to give up some of our certainty and with it, some of our authority.  As a society, we must start to share the load of vulnerability.  Equality doesn’t mean all of us being the same, it means a shared ownership of power and its flip side, a leveling of the burdens that must be carried.

As I lift my glass to toast this year’s graduates and see the beauty of their visions for how they would like the world to be, I am pained with its contrast to the world we have handed them.  But I am also inspired with their ingenuity and passion.  With the climate changing, with the country divided, with inequality rising steadily, they are not comfortable, thank God.  Now, if the rest of us can allow ourselves to give up a bit of control, us old dogs may just learn a few new desperately needed tricks that might make our world a better place, despite us..