Ask an old person about his or her life ( ) - Assignment Example

Life of old people Life is changing ever since it was evolved in this world. Life in the past was entirely different from that at present. In all probabilities, life in future will be extremely different from that at present. The life environments in the past were comparatively tougher than that at present. Past generation fought hard for their survival and therefore they have more life experiences than the present generation. Learning from the past will help current people to manage tougher life situations at present.

Because of the above awareness, I decided to interview my grandfather who is 80 years of age and staying around five kilometers away from us. The purpose of this interview is to compare the life in past and present and to make predictions about the future life. In response to my question about his family, friends, education, career, travel, religion, leisure activities etc my grandfather replied that he was the youngest member of a large family of 10 people. He told me that all the ten members of his family, including his parents and grandparents were staying together in a single home until he and his brothers and sisters get married.

After the marriage, each of his brothers and sisters started to construct homes of their own and separated from his home. However, in most of the special occasions all the family members assembled together in his family and shared their love and affection. He told me that he stopped his education after the completion of his secondary school studies in order to concentrate more on farming. In his opinion, the strength of friendship in the past was more than that at present. He had many friends who were ready to sacrifice their lives for him.

Whenever, a problem occurs to a friend, he and his friends attacked the problem in a combined fashion and nobody stayed away from it. My grandfather told me that he and his friends travelled distant places with the help of bicycles and such journeys increased their physical strength and stamina. Unlike current generation who spend majority of the time in front of computers, my grandfather and company spent their leisure time by playing baseball, football, volleyball etc. My grandfather is a strong believer in religion and he told me that the religious norms were observed strictly in the past that it is observed at present.

My grandfather told me that he had not set any goals in his life; he never bothered too much about the experiences in the past and concentrated only in the present. In his opinion, if we do things better at present, no need to worry about the future. He told me that he had many fond memories about his childhood. However, fishing was the major hobby for him during his childhood. He told me that the death of his father have changed his life entirely. Because of the death of his father, he forced to stop his education and contrite more on supporting his family.

He told me that he and his wife had stronger emotional bondage than any of the husbands and wives of the present era. This emotional bondage helped him immensely whenever family problems occurred. His family life was highly successful and he had no regrets whatsoever. He never set any goals and therefore had no regrets at all. In his opinion, there is no point in setting certain goals and working hard to attain it. In his opinion, unexpected things can happen at any time in life and the ability to face unexpected things will make a person’s life success or failure rather irrespective whether he reached his goal or not.

He told me that he is little worried about the way in which current generation is shaping their lives. In his opinion, current people lost belief in morality and family values and that is why nuclear family like modern concepts is evolving in our social life. In his opinion larger families are always better since each member of such family may get enormous support from other family members while dealing with physical and emotional problems. In his opinion, it is the duty of the children to look after their parents when they approach end of life situations.

In his opinion current generation are more selfish in their life principles and are keeping a blind eye towards the fact that one day they will also become old and their children may not take care of them at that period. He concluded that children learn many things from their parents and therefore setting good examples is the duty of the parents. I can definitely say that the above interview was an eye-opener for me. It forced me to think about my future, especially the end of life situations.

This assignment helped me to compare the life in the past with present. After learning the life in the past from my grandfather, I can predict that the future life may not be good if we fail to change some of the critical aspects of our present life.