With Purpose Success, part 64

Ten years later, Sabatini says, she remains in contact with every single volunteer from that trip. "I created relationships that are some of my longest term colleagues and friends," she says. One of those was the head of the local women's group in India, Bhavana Dee. She still lives in India, but Sabatini exchanges e-mail with her regularly. The two have coordinated service trips for other groups and visit each other. "We hang out, drink tea," says Sabatini. "She's one of those people I just have an easy connection with. Anytime she shows up she's welcome at my house for as long as she wants to stay." 

Reach across Generations 

In search of new and meaningful relationships, it can be enormously helpful to break out of the generational box where you more or less associate with and meet only people around your age. We have become an age-segregated society. The kids go to school all day and have carefully orchestrated extracurricular activities through the dinner hour, all with their peers. You spend ever longer hours at the office with no children or elders in sight. More older adults live in retirement villages or congregate in senior centers with people their age. And it's all exacerbated by our spread-out extended families, which only occasionally come together. 

When they do, family members sometimes find they have few touchstones. 

The result is that the old have too few relationships with the young; and the young do not understand their elders or the aging process. This distinctly modern condition has consequences. In the absence of understanding, myths and stereotypes flourish. Young and middle-aged people see elders as feeble and intransigent. Elders see younger generations as disrespectful and possibly even evil or dangerous. We all lose in the process because our perspectives are needlessly warped. 

Take a minute right now and think about the ten people you spend the most time with, other than your kids or parents. Is there anyone in the group who is more than ten years older or younger than you? How often do you even see a thirty-eight-year-old going out to dinner with their sixty-seven-year-old friend? Not often, right? This isn't the way things always were, nor is it the way things should be. Just a few generations ago, families lived together and worked on the farm, or at the family business. 

People were always dealing with and relating to children, young adults, heads of households, and grandparents. They saw births; they witnessed deaths. The old counseled the young and taught them valuable skills; the young challenged the old and offered new ideas. Everybody benefited. 

But today the tapestry of the generations has been pulled into threads.

Kids are preoccupied being kids, and with cell phones, the Internet, and Facebook-and parents often don't even know who the kids are talking to-or what they are talking about. Grandma and Grandpa may live four hundred miles away and be busy doing their own thing. You are left with your peers to ponder about how it all became so difficult to understand one another. 

Intergenerational ties can keep your life interesting and keep you connected while providing enormous emotional nourishment. Young people feel like they are being mentored; old people feel honored and that they have some way to offer their unique counsel. A thirty-two-yearold woman who befriends a sixty-three-year-old woman can learn about childrearing and marriage without competitive spirits getting in the way, like whose twelve-year-old is the smartest or best athlete. The two can simply enjoy their shared love of, say, spy thrillers, gardening, or investing.