A friend of mine has a real-estate development designed for senior citizens, the older folks amongst us. It’s a small, planned community for senior citizens. He expects to have a model home up for showing sometime this summer.

Here’s why I’ve mentioned it in my blog. He mentioned that the senior citizens he talks with are receptive to the idea but they want to see more than brochures, design sketches, and so forth. They want to see the model home.

Think about that–they want to see the model home. Period.

As we talked about it, my friend and I agreed that older folks have seen it all, or at least, more than younger people. They’ve lived too long to be persuaded by anything other than the tangible–the home now standing, not the home envisioned by a sketch artist.

They’ve lived more history than the rest of us. So, they’re skeptical of imagery and expect to see the substance, the real stuff.

Interesting to ponder this, don’t you think? How does this tendency of having lived so much history affect one’s willingness to change? To adopt a vision?

I’ve often referred to George Washington’s nightmare three months before his death. In the nightmare he saw an angel. He believed it to be the angel of death. Washington, aged 67, woke up shaken from his nightmare, upset. He rushed downstairs from his and his wife’s master bedroom. He picked up a quill pen and immediately amended his will to a) free his slaves and b) provide a fund for their training and education.

That was a basic, massive, and personally fundamental change for a man regarded as elderly in his era. Washington didn’t shirk from making a powerful change later in life.

Older folks can teach us a lot, regardless of the century we or they are in.