Scheduled people

"It's funny how everyone wants to live long but no one wants to grow old," a comment was posted on Squidoo.

For my parents there is great security in predictability, order and routine. This is not new for them. It's their nature. It feels safe for them.

Like using the opposite sides of a pair of binoculars to look at the same thing, what they see as enormous and looming, I often see as small and inconsequential.

When I interact with my parents, what I have come to realise is that to understand them better, and to be more tolerant, I have to try to put myself in their place. And sometimes, as I look ahead at my own life, that's a little scary.