Have you ever heard the old adageWisdom comes with age?? In the past five years I have come to embrace that saying as the truth. I attribute my current position to my progression from young adulthood to the beginnings of middle age. When I was young, which is to say under the age of thirty-five, it was a rare occurrence for me to come across an individual that planned for greater than a week in the future. Carpe Diem!? was the creed by which many of us lived our lives. Now, I carefully weigh most of the decisions I encounter with a greater degree of scrutiny. How a choice will impact my family, our futures, or me is my primary concern when faced with an issue of any significance. My attitudes have changed over the past five years, but it is a natural transition that each of us have or will encounter.
When I was a young boy my parents taught me to show respect for my elders. To this day, whenever I am addressing someone older than me, it is routine for me to address that individual asMa?am? orSir?. That title acknowledges their life experience. After I have established a report with an individual I may drop that title and address them by their first name. For those individuals that I am not as familiar with or for which I feel uncommon respect I will continue to address them asMa?am? or Sir?. It may be another product of my advancing age, but I feel that respect for one's elders is lost on the generations younger than myself. In this age of extreme media coverage and access to loads of information on the Internet, some reputations of individuals that we traditionally hold in high esteem are sullied when as little as a single transgression can lead to a loss of public respect and trust. Most of the thoughts and actions of individuals today are no different today than they were fifty years ago, but they watched more closely. No person is above reproach and each of us has made mistakes in varying degrees in our life.
