Shute

Some people think there's a negative connotation to the word "attitude." You hear it when they say,"My she has an attitude" or "You need an attitude adjustment," for example. With the new contemporary women's fiction being dubbed "fiction with attitude," some authors want to point out that "it's the fiction with the attitude-not the author."

Attitude is Just How You See Things

My dear sweet grandmother, who married at 15 and raised 6 sons alongside my grandfather, was quoted as saying, "Attitude is just how you see things." She was much-loved and had an opinion on everything. After my grandfather passed away, ever the possibility-thinker, she put herself through college and then seminary and became a female pastor in a male-denominated denomination. Another quote she was famous for, "Don't give up because of age or the naysayers."

Another important ingredient is to remain young at heart. I really can't believe some of the things I hear people say. A 35-year-old professional sports player feels like the oldest member of the team-maybe because he is the oldest member of the team. But when the young guys in the locker room are listening to their I-Pods, he hasn't a clue how to join them. It takes his daughter getting him in touch with the latest technology to help him feel like one of the guys but he gets razzed in the locker room. Why should the latest technology be only for the youngest of the young? Why do some 50-year-olds cop out with the "I'm too old for this stuff" when 70- and 80-year-olds have tapped into the latest resources? If it's just not your thing, say that not "I'm too old."

Nothing warms my heart more than a 20-something listening to Tony Bennett, the 6-year-old noted for having the largest collection of Elvis memorabilia, or seeing an 80-year-old man wearing a ponytail, out jogging listening to his I-Pod. Because it's not about the ageit's the attitudeof being an individual while remaining young at heart.

Say No to Boxes

Whether you embrace technology or not isn't really the point, although embracing the world as your own is. It's about not letting society put you in a box. Don't give it away, buying into the idea that everything's for the young and your time has past because too often we accept these aging generalities as our own because it's easier. "People my age don't do that" is a great escapeso people think.

A wise person once said, "People put you in boxes so they can dismiss you." Or in the case of our modern age, so that Madison Avenue can market to you. While I am a boomer, I've rather disliked being put in that box my entire life. But it's only so people can sell us something and while that can be a good thing, it can also be detrimental. While it can be cool to join together and share our history, when we categorize ourselves in a certain age group totally, we stop thinking for ourselves and we stop being ourselves. And while I have a lot of boomer sisters online doing great things for this age groupI applaud thempeople often lump me in with that group but my message has never really been about an age.

For example, on a recent cruise I noticed the cruise line, instead of playing a set of soothing jazz music in a martini lounge, was playing a song from my childhood. It seemed highly-inappropriate for the venue. Their marketing department must have concluded that the majority of their passengers were now boomers and this meant they wanted to hear songs from their youth. Must we only embrace the music we heard when we were kids? Don't people have more diverseinterestingtastes than that? I'm hesitant to return to that cruise line if that's their marketing approach.

When I was a young woman, I was drawn to older women who saw me for the individual that I am. Now that I'm an "older" woman, I'm drawn to younger women. Maybe because I don't have children, I see them as women and not as daughtersI see them for the individual they are. But one of my role models was an older woman who had 2 daughters close to my age but you never would have known that. She treated me like an individual and not as somebody the age of one of her daughters. Life shouldn't be about the ageit's about the attitudeno matter our age.

Kathy Holmes writes women's fiction with attitude, a believer in second chances and that every little girl needs to know her daddy. She has published her first novel, "Real Women Wear Red," set on a Caribbean cruise and a free companion Ebook, "Cyn's Fabulous Guide to Cruising." She has also published a nonfiction book, "Myths of the Fatherless," about her journey to find and meet her father. To find out more, see her web site and blog at http://www.kathyholmes.net