I'm 60 years old and I'm finding it hard to deal with. What should I do?

[Answered on Quora.com by Komal Kapur]

My father retired at the age of 59 with nothing much to do. To keep himself engaged, he started helping my mother in the kitchen and running errands like buying groceries. One day, he met a Guru who taught classical music. He came home excited, reminding my mother of his love for singing and how he had always wanted to learn classical music. That very day, both my parents decided that he would pursue his passion.

You won’t believe it — he woke up every morning at 4:30 a.m. to practice ragas with immense dedication. Over the years, he mastered the harmonium, tabla, and various ragas. By the time he turned 65, he had established his own institute to teach classical music, where he trained 200 students. His hard work and determination were truly remarkable. At the age of 70, he even completed his Ph.D. in music, proving that passion has no age limit. I am so incredibly proud of him.

After he passed away, my mother found herself completely alone. She didn’t know how to fill her time, but instead of succumbing to loneliness, she rediscovered her own talent. She had always been gifted in drawing and painting, so she started teaching children — finding joy in sharing her skills. Alongside this, she kept herself engaged by reading the newspaper, chatting with friends, and even experimenting with different cake recipes.

From my parents, I have learned a powerful lesson — everything is in the mind. If you truly want to stay occupied and live with purpose, you can. But if you allow yourself to feel lonely and lost, life can become stagnant. Their journey is a true inspiration, proving that passion and learning never have an expiration date.

Jim Croce "Walkin’ Back to Georgia"

Promise Three (from daily ACA email)

"Fear of authority figures and the need to ‘people-please' will leave us."

As children, from infancy through our teen years, we were surrounded by authority figures. This included our family, babysitters and teachers - those who traditionally deserved respect. But many of these people took advantage of our respect for authority by intimidating us into a submissive role. Our natural tendency to please was exploited by the unreasonable demands placed on us.

As adults, our need to people-please took a darker turn and robbed us of our ability to enjoy life. Always seeking to please others, we were left waiting for our turn at getting our needs met.

In ACA, the edges of the puzzle of how we became people-pleasers slowly start to become clear. We begin to free the roots of our people-pleasing habit from the soil of our childhoods. In its place we plant brand new seeds of hope.

Consistent work in our program allows our insight, clarity, and freedom to flourish. No longer fearful of authority and under the compulsion to please, we are emancipated to decide for ourselves whom we need to fear and whom we choose to please.

On this day I will continue working the ACA program to further unearth the deep roots of my fear of authority and people-pleasing. I choose to be free of any hold they still have over me.

Change (from daily ACA email)

"We become openminded to the idea that we can change with time and with help."

Most of us have heard the saying, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten." In other words, nothing will change until we make a change.

We may have read all the books and made attempts at change, but nothing stuck for long. A big reason it didn't work is that we were probably trying to do it alone. We told ourselves that we didn't need to talk to others about anything; we just had to try harder. And when we hit a wall with whatever new thing we were trying, we found some justification for quitting.

So nothing really changed until we gave ourselves permission to walk into our first ACA meeting. That is where we discovered the power of the group - a mix of new faces with familiar stories. We listened to some say how difficult it was to work on change, and that change takes time. This might have made us run the other way, except that it was followed by talk of how rewarding it is to make even baby steps of change. Because we want that same experience, we keep coming back. Not doing it alone makes all the difference in the world.

On this day I will remember that I deserve my own change and that I never have to go it alone again.

Trait Three: frightened by angry people (from daily ACA email)

"We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism."

It's insidious - the abuse we experienced. For many of us, our caregivers didn't just get mad, they got angry and enraged. And it could be over something simple. Maybe we were out doing normal kid stuff, but because we had an angry parent waiting at home, we were never sure what to expect. We were repeatedly blindsided with accusations that said we were no good, selfish, irresponsible, uppity, or a whole host of other shaming language. Or maybe it happened to a sibling, which was just as bad because we knew it could be turned on us at any time.

Is it any wonder that as adults we almost visibly flinched when we were faced with angry people? We carried the fear of being criticized with us like a banner that said, "I'm an easy target. I won't even argue with you because I don't have a voice."

But as we start to find our voice, we begin to separate the anger from the words, and the words from reality. We do not deserve to be talked to ‘like that.' And we didn't deserve it as a child. We were innocent! And now, as we learn to reparent ourselves, we can tell our Inner Child that we will protect them when someone is angry or critical. We can do for ourselves what others should have done for us.

On this day I will remember that another person's anger is not mine. If I hear criticism, I can separate truth from fiction.