Sunset is infinitely beautiful: Self-psychological adjustment for middle-aged and elderly people

Author: Zhang Zhongru
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-01-01
Features: This book includes: Walking forward opens up a sky ahead; The most beautiful is the red sunset; Seeking a suitable life positioning; Keeping pace with the times and not "retiring"; Embracing the splendid sunset glow. Content. Role refers to behavioral patterns associated with a certain social position. It is the expected behavior of individuals occupying a social position, such as the responsibilities and obligations they should fulfill, as well as the rights they should enjoy. Everyone plays different roles in different settings, social stages, and age stages, and different roles dictate different behavioral expectations and norms. Each member of society plays multiple roles simultaneously at the same time, and the roles people hold change with time and circumstances, leading to role conflicts. Role conflict refers to conflicts within or between roles. After retirement, older adults often struggle to adapt to new social roles, which is a form of role conflict. A survey by experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) Committee on Aging of 6,000 elderly people under different economic conditions and lifestyles found that 32% of their health was affected by social psychological factors. Experts discovered that the emergence of these factors was closely related to the transformation of social roles. After retirement, older adults move from society to family, and their lives shift from a professional to a leisurely type, with a relativelyed scope of social activities, leading to psychological imbalance and depression. Retirement is a normal phenomenon after a person's career. However, due to the transition between old and new roles, older adults find it difficult to adjust to their social roles and adapt to new ones, often experiencing psychological conflicts and behavioral contradictions, which sociologists refer to as historical role conflicts. Due to the transition from a professional role to a non-working role after retirement, older adults face a psychological adjustment and adaptation process when fulfilling their new roles and achieving role transformation. Before older adults adapt to the new role requirements, the inconsistency between the psychology and behavior of the old and new roles still exists, which often leads to difficult-to-adapt psychological states. The role change before and after retirement not only means losing certain rights but also means losing the emotions associated with the role originally held, changing the behavior patterns that have been accustomed to for decades. Especially for some older adults, they still feel like useless people in society. Retiring from the busy and stressful work line, life and work rhythms suddenly become relaxed and slow. Friends and colleagues who met daily suddenly become distant, and streets and roads that were passed every day are no longer frequently visited. The psychological emotions of being lost and lonely will be severely impacted, making them feel difficult to adapt. Negative emotions such as loss, inferiority, and loneliness will accompany them. Additionally, since the professional role is always at the center of society, it can be said to be in the dominant structure or core structure of society. After retirement, with the transformation of roles, they become part of the marginal structure of society, the original social identity disappears, and the new role, being in the marginal structure, cannot build a strong social identity and may even shrink further, making loneliness and a sense of uselessness inevitable. Cultivate a calm, optimistic, and open-minded mindset. China has had many stories of longevity since ancient times. For example, the Ming Dynasty longevity scholar Lü Kun wrote in his Whispering in Words: "The principles of all things in heaven and earth begin with calmness and end with haste. When things are calm, there is more wisdom, and when people are calm, there is more longevity." Another saying, "Not taking joy in things and not grieving for oneself," has become the secret to health and longevity for many people. As people age, due to their long experience and profound insights, their views on people and things become more thorough. Therefore, as long as they pay a little attention to relaxing, being carefree, amiable, and cheerful, they can easily face the reality of "a sky full of sunset red." In Western families, the most intimate relationship is the marital relationship, while in traditional Chinese families, the most intimate relationship is the parent-child relationship. After the reform and opening-up, due to the influence of Western culture, more and more young people have attached greater importance to their emotional lives, and the most intimate relationship in modern families has become the marital relationship. However, this change in young people has not been fully accepted by their parents, and many older adults are not mentally prepared for this social change. They value their children over themselves, striving to create a good living environment for their children. They are not seeking material satisfaction or financial support from their children but only hope to receive their respect, attention, and comfort. As the song Come Home Often goes: "Dad arranged a good meal, Mom prepared some nagging. Share life's worries with Mom, talk about work with Dad." Older adults need communication with their children. However, in reality, some children are too busy with work or business to care for their parents; others are only concerned with building their own small families and have no time for the elderly; or some are immersed in a life of luxury and their private lives and do not care about their parents. When they do come home occasionally, they leave behind a mess after a big meal, leaving their parents to clean up, while they leave with peace of mind. Therefore, children should pay more attention to their parents, notice the frustration and loneliness of older adults when they have nowhere to speak, and strengthen the awareness of caring for the elderly. However, the dialectical law of life tells us that "everything is relative." While asking young people to pay attention to the affectionate needs of older adults, older adults themselves should also adapt to the trends of the times and update their concepts. They should recognize that the shift in the family's central axis relationship is a result of social development and is inevitable, so they should adjust their behavior to adapt to this change. For example, older adults can learn about the outside world through newspapers, television, and radio news media, understand that their children face a highly competitive market economy era, especially after China joined the WTO, where the pressure of competition will continue to grow, thus being able to empathize with their children's behavior of leaving early and returning late due to work and study, providing them with spiritual support, and enabling them to perform better. At the same time, older adults can also utilize their remaining energy to participate in various social public learning, entertainment, and exercise activities to help themselves step out of their families and enrich their lives. When older adults were young, they were busy with work, household chores, and raising children, leaving little time for leisure. After their children grow up and become independent, older adults should learn to focus on their spouses, give them more warmth and care, and create their own life interests, as the saying goes, "young couples become companions in old age." What moved the author most was seeing elderly couples walking together with understanding and silent happiness on the streets or in parks. Only "the sunset is infinitely beautiful, but it is near dusk" is known, but who knows that "the most beautiful is the red sunset" as well? In the love and companionship with their spouses, the psychological imbalance caused by lagging in will be restored. (1) The need for love. Young people face a developing and active society, where interpersonal activities and emotions are growing, making them optimistic individuals. As older adults age physiologically, many adapt well and are good at finding meaning in life and development, and they explore new interests in their lives. However, some older adults not only feel that they are physically aging but also feel that their relatives, children, and the world are becoming distant from them. Some associations closely related to their careers have been forced to separate due to age and health. This social isolation makes them feel that they have lost a common language and love with others. Without love, whether it is infants, young people, or older adults, it means losing the meaning of life, and the power of religion naturally increases in their minds. To escape the loneliness of the soul, some people who were not religious believers or had no connection with religion in their youth joined the ranks of believers in their old age. (2) Seeking new spiritual communication. If the love given by religion is illusory, then the interpersonal love established through the joint worship of believers is indeed real. Participating in various religious gatherings can provide social opportunities to exchange feelings, joys, and concerns with peers. This interaction with peers reduces the sense of life decline and gives them a sense of strength from the group activities of their peers, at least making them feel that they are not the only lonely people in the world. Religious activities help older adults make many new friends, visit each other's homes, chat intimately, and even help each other, sharing health knowledge, ways of maintaining health, and encouraging each other. These by-products of religious activities are more meaningful than the activities themselves. After participating in religious activities, many older adults dress more neatly, become more lively in their speech, and feel better, possibly benefiting from this "religious social interaction" function. Regardless of the reasons why older adults develop an interest in religion and participate in religious ceremonies and organizations, their objective effects have certain positive meanings; they gain a group of new companions with similar interests, who can advise and consult with each other in life, strengthen the power of survival and development, and provide each other with necessary support and a sense of security. In contrast, those who stay at home and do not participate in group activities, if they cannot overcome the loneliness and fear of life themselves, cannot obtain this social support. (3) Establishing a new sense of belonging. Although some older adults admit that death is the end of everything, the older they get, the harder it becomes to truly accept this. For any person, the thought of permanently leaving the world undoubtedly brings great pain, even though they may not have accepted the cycle of life and death or the concept of heaven in their youth, but when the concept and emotions of life's belonging clash significantly in their later years, they gradually unconsciously acknowledge the existence of a god. Some older adults describe their newly established religious beliefs as follows: "When I was young, I also thought about 'death,' but I thought it was still far away and didn't need to worry about it. Later, various signs showed that it was approaching and inevitable, and only the divine could help me escape this suffering and give me a chance at rebirth. I firmly believe in this." (4) Seeking moral self-restraint. In social life, people often morally evaluate and choose their actions, guided by the restraining force of their beliefs. Some people lack self-control and, after committing wrong actions, feel guilty but cannot extricate themselves, falling into distress, and turn to religion for help. The moral power of religion can restrain its believers because they believe that religious doctrines and principles are inviolable, and otherwise, they will face the punishment of the gods. Even if they are not punished in this life, they will face retribution in the next. Through this survey, we see that the beliefs of these elderly believers are largely about preserving life but also caring about the suffering of death and the happiness of the afterlife, seeking a new life state and emphasizing the realization of their own value, alleviating spiritual pressure and hoping for emotional regulation and an elevation of their. With the arrival of an aging society, the pressure on the social security system will also continue to increase, and issues such as the material support and spiritual comfort of the elderly will become important concerns for the entire society, requiring the attention and care of all. The desire for life and the fear of death must also have a certain belief to support and comfort them to remain calm and maintain a healthy mindset. In our aesthetic experience, perception plays a decisive role. Artistic aesthetics is a spiritual pleasure of being captivated by the subject caused by the artistic aesthetic object, and the bridge connecting the aesthetic object and the aesthetic subject is aesthetic perception. Without aesthetic perception, what is called artistic aesthetics would be like a castle in the air or an image in a mirror. Among the various senses of humans, vision and hearing play the main role in aesthetics and serve as the foundation of aesthetic perception. The Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei's quatrain Bird Crying Valley describes the author's perception of the quiet scenery of spring mountains: "When people are idle, osmanthus petals fall; At night, the spring mountain is empty. The moon rises, startling the mountain birds, Singing in the spring stream at intervals." Here, the falling of osmanthus petals, the emptiness of the spring mountain, and the rising of the moon are all perceived visually, while the startled mountain birds and the singing of the spring stream are captured by hearing. Therefore, the entire poem's atmosphere is perceived and understood through vision and hearing to recognize the night scene of the spring mountain. Of course, when older adults appreciate some tangible works of art, they can also perceive the object through senses other than vision and hearing to gain aesthetic pleasure. Rodin, when admiring the Venus de' Medici statue, placed his hand flat on the statue and said, "When touching this statue, one almost feels it is warm." This shows that when Rodin was aesthetically appreciating the Venus de' Medici statue, touch also became an important channel of perception.