Golden Triangle Seniors Make Impactful New Year’s Resolutions : SETX Seniors

Golden Triangle Seniors Make Impactful New Year’s Resolutions

Posted by Daryl Fant on Monday, December 25, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Golden Triangle Senior New Year’s Resolutions

Make an Impact

Most Golden Triangle senior citizens have made several decades of New Year’s resolutions.

Years later, how many of them do we remember?

How many of them really changed our lives? How many of our New Year’s resolutions really changed someone else’s life?

As Southeast Texas senior citizens, we are in a position to make some truly life affecting resolutions this year – many may not involve a lot of work from us, but by sticking with them, they can make a big impact down the road, for us or for someone special in our lives.

This year, examine your life and your family’s needs and see if there are some New Year’s resolutions you can make (and keep!) that will really improve your life or someone else’s.

Every Southeast Texas senior citizen has a different story, situation, and family needs. There is no “one” New Year’s resolution list that will work for all Golden Triangle seniors, but SETX Seniors has put together some ideas. If one or more would enrich your life, or a family member’s, please feel free to use it.

If you don’t see the perfect fit on our list, maybe we’ll at least get you thinking of the New Year’s resolution that fits your needs – or your family’s.

Family History: In most cases, you will know more about your family history than everyone a generation or more younger than you combined. One thing I have learned is that everyone would like to know where their family came from. Of course you know more about your parents and aunts and uncles and cousins. You also have picked up hundreds of scraps of information from informal family conversations from your childhood, listening to your parents while you were in the backseat of the car (no I-Phone when we were kids), and reading the letters and mementos family members left behind. Write down what you remember and pass it on. At some point, each of your grandchildren and great grandchildren will have questions about where your family is from. If you don’t feel up to a full blown geneology project, give them the highlights – (Most of our family is from Scotland and England, Egypt, or Poland or Ireland), Pass on a couple of meaningful stories, and if your family is related to anyone famous try to explain the relationship. Whether your project turns into a full geneology and a hundred pages of family memories or is three or four pages written on a spiral notebook, it will be appreciated. Everyone wants to know where they came from. One challenge of sharing a family history is leaving it in a way your family can keep it for a long time. Options include having it published, putting it on a website, or passing down your notes from one family member to another.
Autobiography. Your life is an important part of where your family comes from. Hopefully you’ll be around to answer their questions for a long time. Even if you live another fifty years, your family will eventually have questions you’re not here to answer. Where did grandpa come from? How did grandma and grandpa meet? Where was our grandmother born? Was Papa in a war? Leave behind some kind of autobiography that will answer their questions. Whether it’s twelve pages or three hundred, it will be valued by your descendants. Today an autobiography can be done in video form, as a book or pamphlet, or as a website. Have someone assist you with getting your biography into one of these formats so that it can be shared for a long, long time. Beaumont’s Ziggle Owl can assist you with turning your biography into a website or making a magazine or book you can pass on to family members.
Family College Programs. Your kids are doing a terrible job of preparing to meet your grandchildren’s college needs. Surprised? Don’t be. 90% of parents have less than $1000 in their kids college accounts. If you rely on them to get their act together, your grandchild is either not going to college or will be crippled by student loan debt. Many Golden Triangle seniors leave behind money to their alma maters (Hook ‘Em!) or other Southeast Texas charities (some small amounts, some leave large amounts). Before you do this, make sure your own grandchildren and great grandchildren are taken care of. Just because your kids have a good education and a good career, doesn’t mean they’ve prepared for our grandchildren’s educations. Many of our grown children are living beyond their means (private schools, multiple car payments, big homes, and fancy vacations add up quickly) and will “get to their college funds “soon”. Too often “soon” turns into when the kids are already in college when it is really too late. If you are able to, step in, step up, and set up college accounts for the grandkids on your own. You don’t even have to tell your kids that you did it until close to time for your grandchildren to enroll (that way your kids will hopefully save something!). Even if your child is the exception and contributing each month to a college account, there is no danger of having “too much money” saved for your grandchild – Texas (and nationwide) college costs are skyrocketing. Your Southeast Texas financial planner can assist you with setting up the college accounts according to your wishes.
Family Vacation. Is there a place you’d like to see? Coordinate taking the family, or some of the family. That doesn’t mean you have to pay for it. If you don’t have the means to fund a family trip that is okay, be a facilitator. If money is tight for you and your family, pick somewhere achievable and meaningful- a short road trip to an area your family is from can be great. You can drive with them by the old family homestead, your old high school, and where you had your first “real” job. If money is less tight, consider helping your kids put together a family trip to Disney World or a camping trip to Big Bend. Memories are one of the greatest gifts we can provide. If money is no object, consider a trip to Hawaii, the South Pole, or an RV trip to Yosemite. Whatever the destination or budget, your family will remember going somewhere with you – and they will cherish those memories for a long time. It is good for them, and it is good for us as Southeast Texas Seniors. Deep down, we all want to be remembered. There’s a part of us that wants to live on, at least a little bit, in the memories of our descendants. My grandmother took my cousin and I to London. I will never forget that trip. My father-in-law took my boys to Alaska – I can tell they will never forget that experience.
Have your Grandchildren lost one of their parents? That means you’ve lost one of your children, and that is a horrible thing. We’re sorry for your loss. If your grandchildren were young when it happened, it is hard and painful to believe but they will forget things about their parent. Put together something like a memory box for them. Include any videos, audio recordings, copies of photos, letters, and anything that can give them a connection to their lost parent. If you have a child who is dying but who is still with us get them to pen a letter or card to each of their children. It can be as simple as, “Always remember that daddy loves you. I will always be thinking of you. I will be watching over you.” While you’re at it, your grown children have the same needs. Take a moment to write them each a short personal letter giving closure whereever needed – “I may not have always known how to say it, but I love you very much.” “I wish I would have done _____________ differently”. “I am proud of the woman you grew up to be”. “I think you are a great dad to my grandchildren”. You can even include a dedication of a song that expresses your feelings – Willie Nelson’s “You Were Always on My Mind” is hard to beat.