GRACIOUSNESS

An existential void exists in our culture. A deepening and widening void. This broadening void increases suffering. The cause of this expansion is the growing shortage of graciousness.

Gracious means courteous, kind, and pleasant. A quality that elders radiate.  Along the way, elders acquire the second meaning of gracious, “showing divine grace.” The root word of gracious is from the Latin “gratiosus,” Godly, merciful, and compassionate.

Being gracious is a vital and transformative state of being. It shifts perspective over to the abundant side. It also dramatically reduces righteousness, anger, and self-belittlement. You can’t be right and be gracious at the same time.

When in the presence of an elder, you’ll notice the following characteristics inherent in their graciousness.

Humility: 

Humility comes not from having a low view of oneself but rather quite the opposite. Elders know themselves and realize they are human with all the flaws baked in. And they also realize their gifts. Elders are poised and consistent in retaining their humility.

Elders come to realize that every single person is different, including them. Elders acknowledge that people are people, and they’re one of them. No one-upmanship is possible. All are made from the same cloth.

Elders realize pride is hollow. Pride is concerned with who is right, while humility is concerned with what is right. Pride makes you artificial, and humility makes you real. Humility is the ability to give up your pride while retaining your dignity.

Humility isn't denying your strengths; it's being honest about your weaknesses. Humility is the key to relationships that make a difference without compromising your values.

Ultimately, humility is integrity with oneself as oneself.

Authenticity:

Authenticity requires vulnerability, transparency, and integrity. Elders find it much easier to be authentic because they have stopped seeing themselves through other people’s eyes. No more masks are needed. No more different personalities are required. Layers of ego skin have been shed. Elders are in touch with their mortality. They don’t have time to waste being someone else.

Brene Brown’s definition of authenticity is pitch perfect, “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of whom we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.”

Elders spend time knowing themselves through constant self-examination which drives the subjective into the objective. They cease judging, assessing, explaining, and rationalizing themselves. They fully understand they need to change, not the world.

Authenticity is about imperfection. Authenticity is about being true to yourself when everybody wants you to be someone else.

Authenticity can’t be faked.

Authenticity is in very short supply.

Elders bring authenticity to the conversation which alters the nature and outcomes of conversations.

Intuition: 

Intuition is your ability to understand something immediately without having to analyze or reason. Elders trust and apply their intuition. They have come to honor and surrender to their intuition. They realize their intuition is powered by higher wisdom.

One of my favorite fiction writers, very readable on vacations, is Dean Koontz, who says, “Intuition is seeing with the soul.” And Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

Elders intuit - know, sense, and understand by intuition. Intuition is the power or faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference, immediate apprehension, or cognition.

Elders don’t listen to the chatter; they listen to themselves.

Gratitude: 

Elders are gracious, gracious to individuals and groups, expressing gratitude for others, and acknowledging those who support and contribute to their being an elder. Ultimately being an elder is a relationship phenomenon.

As crucial, elders are gracious to themselves. Being gracious to yourself shuts down the inner critic’s screeching. Being gracious to yourself isn’t easy in our Western culture with its inherent psychology – we’re never good enough, smart enough, recognized enough, or rich enough.

Elders have figured out how to be forgiving, lenient, and humorous with all their sh*t. They realize life is short, and they are as good as they will ever get.

Elders practice gratitude. It is not an easy practice. Elders appreciate that there's an actual probability to their very existence. It's infinitesimally tiny: about 1 in 400 trillion. What does this mean?

The odds of being born and winning Power Ball to the 10^th degree. The odds of winning a Power Ball ticket is 1 in 300 million. The likelihood of you being born equates to winning the lottery 1.33 million times.

Elders appreciate their life as a rare and precious gift, liberating them from the prison of self-preoccupation and self-deception.

Elders understand it was an absolute miracle they were born. And they also realize life inherently comes with problems. If you are alive, you have problems. Because of their perspective, elders see problems from a much more enlightened perspective.

Conclusion

It is evident that one way to close the void is to drop elders into the void.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Report & Outreach:

The Contemporary Elder Retreat was indeed a breakthrough event. People’s late-life and futures were completely renovated. It was “amazing grace.”

At our leadership debrief meeting, it became clear that we must constitute ourselves as a nonprofit for many reasons.  

Nonprofit fits our core values and purity of service, especially when we take personal incomes totally out of the equation. It holds much more integrity with our purpose and intended results. It states we are not here to make a profit but to make a difference, a difference that changes lives and futures.

Two, we want to work in corporate. Retreats and programs are expensive. As a nonprofit, a decent percentage of their money for their senior executives and directors would be deductible – and for less expensive. The same holds for individuals.

Three, being a nonprofit would keep us in line being elders.

Four, our work transitioning “older” to “elder,” given the population, longevity, and wealth of those over 65, given the impact, it can have on mental and physical well-being, we believe this work will have far-reaching effects so making it as available as possible fits the core of a nonprofit.

We are now exploring if we can fly under an established nonprofit and give them a negotiated percentage of fees and tuition. Our cause and their cause would need to be closely aligned. Our mission would need to enhance its mission and vice-versa.



We have fulfilled our proof of concept. We know we can engage late-age professionals and move them effectively to become an elder.

If you have a nonprofit that comes to mind that you might consider as a possible benefactor/partner, please let me know. marc@drmarcbcooper.com or message me on my LinkedIn page.