I remember being a kid, and even a teenager, and sitting in on family gatherings and listening to the adults talk about life and everything happening in the world around them.
Invariably, the conversation would shift to somebody waxing nostalgic and subsequently talking about something that happened in "the good old days."
Their good old days.
As a youngster, I didn't really have any good old days to compare to, but the adults sure made it sound like there was a time and place in life that was a lot better than the time we were having right now.
I got to thinking about it a little bit today as I contemplated the reality that I am now of an age where I would have been part of that group of older adults who reminisced about the good old days. That said, however, I also realized that I wasn't finding it particularly easy to come up with tangible examples of "good old days."
I suppose I could keep it nice and simple and simply declare that it was "the good old days" at a time when I didn't have to worry about bills and taxes and inflation and not feeling like I could ever afford my life, but that struck me as overly simplistic. It also seemed like a considerably different focal point from the adults I remember having their chats because they weren't generally talking about money, they were talking about life.
I do remember various occasions during my 30s and 40s where somebody would start talking about the good old days and I would — only half jokingly — declare that my good old days were still ahead of me.
Having now reached the somewhat ripe age of 65, I sincerely doubt that my good old days are still ahead of me, but I'm also not too sure where they might be hiding in my past.
I suppose if I were forced to come up with good old days, they would be the days before I had substantial responsibilities. But that seems rather inadequate because while I may not have had responsibilities, life wasn't particularly good.
In some ways, I think the myth of "good old days" fits somewhere on the spectrum of Human Experience next to the notion of "finding happiness."
We talk about happiness as this tangible thing that we can actually find and hold as ours in some permanent or semi-permanent state, but my experience with happiness has typically been that it comes in brief moments where everything seems to just come together in a state of perfection that lasts perhaps seconds or minutes, and then passes on as life resumes a sense of normalcy.
Somehow these brief moments of experience hold more weight in my memory than the fact that there was a time when I would pay $0.99 for a gallon of gas, or that eggs would be on sale at Safeway for 29 cents a dozen.
The thing about passing time is that we often end up looking backwards through the rose colored glasses of fading memory. We look backwards at things and they somehow feel like they were better than they really were. In truth, they really weren't all that great except for those occasional moments.
Of course, I say this knowing full well that everybody's experience is unique and different. I can only speak to my own experience, not to anyone else's.
Still, I do end up sitting back and pondering whether there was really anything there.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Friday!
Comments, feedback and other engagement is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!
Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!
Proud member of the Silver Bloggers Community on Hive!
As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — not posted anywhere else.
2026.07.03 00:22 PDT
1585/2849
