The most important message participants had for young people was about looking after themselves. They emphasised the need to make good decisions when you are young, because the cumulative effects of smoking, drugs and alcohol abuse catch up with you as you age. Eat well, exercise, find joy in life and be strong.
Robyn has found the quality of life you have when you are older is based on the decisions you make today.
> Click here to view the transcript
I think that probably the most significant advice I can say is that death and taxes are the two inevitables of life and that you might be young and fit and well off now, but, you will progress to old age and to death and the quality of your ageing will be partly dependent upon the quality of the decisions you make about how you live today, particularly at the negative end of the spectrum. If you abuse alcohol and other drugs, there will be repercussions. You might survive the police, you might survive all sorts of disease, but each incidence of abusing your body destroys certain cells and you will suffer the consequences as an older person. If you – It sounds terribly boring – eat well, exercise, find what joy there is for you in life. I mean, it is aspirational and sometimes the drudgeries of life get in the way, but that is a mark of hope and that what today your life is, is that it can be turned around to something different in the future. And, maybe you can even share how you’ve coped and survived it and pass that lesson on to somebody else.
Elaine M encourages the younger generation of Yolngu people not to get involved in marijuana and alcohol as it will make them age faster. Be healthy and strong in your heart and your mind, she says.
> Click here to view the transcript
I always talk to my grandchildren, I tell them “don’t get old yet, try and be healthy and strong in here [heart], in here [head], all over, try and be healthy. Yalala [later] get older yalala, later on.” I do sometimes say to them don’t drink or don’t get too involved in whatever, people are smoking marijuana, whatever alcohol, don’t get too involved in that. Try not to get involved because I don’t want you to get older, a lot of young people get older because they drink a lot. My children I always tell them, when you get older be strong.
Translation: I am saying this for my people, for the younger generation. You have to stay young and strong and don’t get yourself in a position where you can get sick earlier. Just stay strong even though you look old.
As older people are passing away,
Oscar wants to support young people to become strong leaders in the community.
> Click here to view the transcript
We are trying to be able to establish or give the message to the young people today to be a leader because we are dying very soon and we are getting weaker and weaker, and we need to still encourage and support those young people today.
Another important message to young people was to live in the present. Do not look too far into the future, and just be happy. Dorothy used to love hiking in the Snowy Mountains when she was younger but due to mobility problems she can no longer do these walks. She is learning to live where she is at the moment.
Leonie advises not to ‘sweat the small stuff’ and appreciate what you have each day.
> Click here to view the transcript
I’ve just told you the main thing is to not sweat the small stuff and to realise that most of what we sweat over is small stuff. If we can just step back enough to have a look and to perhaps live day-by-day rather than looking at the future continually, just enjoy what there is without going too far forward or back come to that. And learn to appreciate what you have and what there is at the time when it happens, I think it’s a very important issue.
The men we spoke with were more likely to emphasise the need for a good education and to plan financially for old age, whereas women asked young people to have patience, wait their turn in line and do what they can to help older people. They also expressed the need to acknowledge the experience older people have and to listen to their stories.
Kaye wishes she had talked to her grandparents more about their early pioneer days in Australia.
> Click here to view the transcript
You’ve got experience, even if you don’t know it, you’ve had all that experience of living that the younger people have yet to experience. It’s got to count for something, all this experience. And listen to the older people, because there are people older than I am, and listen to what they’re telling you because they’ve got a story to tell. I think the younger people – I just wish the younger people would listen to the older people. The one thing that I’m sad that I didn’t do, and that is talk to my grandparents more. My grandfather particularly because he’s the one who came out from Africa, and I didn’t hear his full story and they had lots of stories to tell. That’s important because they were the pioneers and they are what made us what we are today. It really is important.