It's the way you look at things.. even at 100

A friend dropped by yesterday. She's my age or thereabouts and have extremely bad arthritis; she's had it for yours yet she still has the drive and energy to work fulltime at Wild Mountains Trust in the hills behind Brisbane.

Joan was telling us that she visits a 100-year old lady in a nursing home nearby. She heard that she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to, so Joan took on the 'job'. (Non-paying)

The old lady - let's call her Gladys, is legally blind.

Not long into Joan's visits, she began to hear the same sort of complaints about how awful it was to be old, how awful it was to be blind... and one and on. Joan took her on drives, to singalongs, yet the moans kept coming.

We talked about how to manage the repetitive moans from the centenegarian, and as we discussed it, Joan related a lovely story I'd like to share.

Sitting with Gladys at the lunch table, Joan was introduced to another home resident we'll call Ethel. Ethel was also blind, but was a mere 90 years old.

Gladys began moaning about the dessert, saying that she hated the fact that 'they' - the nursing home - always gave her too much to finish, how it was a terrible waste, how awful it was that they were so unthinking. Joan gritted her teeth and said nothing.

Ethel, who was also partaking of the same dessert paused, looked sightlessly towards Gladys, and said "Oh? I think it tastes just so good! And it's so nice of them to give me as much as I can eat!"

Joan, who had been contemplating telling Gladys that she should be less grumpy because there were others in the home in more frail states then her, paused and thought.

"How can that be? Two old ladies with years of life experience behind them.. yet they have absolutely opposite ways of looking at the world."

She decided to say nothing to Gladys, realising that her approach would probably only entrench Gladys' negativity. Yet we had a wonderful discussion about how to look at life. And we came to the same conclusion we always seem to come to.

There is always a choice. not, perhaps in what actually happens to us, but always, always, in how we choose to see it.