How can a grandparent get through to a grandchild who is perfectly happy with living their life in the fast lane? Is it possible to cushion them from the blows that life brings? This week, our guest blog post comes from Elizabeth Edmunds, who wonders this - and how Justin Bieber's granny is feeling right now.
I am wondering if Justin Bieber has a granny or maybe even two grannies and how they might be feeling about his arrest. It isn't a lot of fun seeing a son or grandson getting into trouble but if you were sitting at home thinking that all that success and money was bound to be bad for any boy let alone your own, perhaps you would be relieved that he had been brought up short.
What would his granny think?
What any grandmother would wish for their own grandchild would be happiness, and as most grannies have been around a bit, it's fair to say that they have seen what things give short-term happiness but don't last, and what can give sustainable happiness. I expect that Francois Hollande's grandmother (sa grande-mère) might have a few thoughts on this too!
His granny might have gone on meditating right through all of his wild life and then when he finds himself bereft he might wonder why she is still out there, gardening and meditating and perfectly happy and he might want to find out why.
As a granny, I don't want to be a killjoy but it isn't rocket science to realise that we are fooled by life itself into thinking that we will live for ever and that our good health and happiness are our own right. If I could persuade anyone, especially my grandchildren and their friends, that they could cushion themselves from the shocks that life can deliver by meditating, I would do so. But I know that whilst life is still dishing up the excitement I am not going to have much luck.
So if, like Justin Bieber, your boy is driving a Lamborghini along a highway which has been cleared by his followers who are all applauding him, is he going to listen to his old granny at the side of the road waving her stick at him saying "stop and think and take up meditation"? No he isn't! He is only going to listen when all the things that compose his life are falling away; the friends have gone, the Lamborghini is reclaimed and the money has run out. But his granny might have gone on meditating right through all of his wild life and then when he finds himself bereft he might wonder why she is still out there, gardening and meditating and perfectly happy and he might want to find out why.
And of course he would find that his granny was one person who had always loved him.
)
How can Granny' s meditating help her grandson? Would have thought it would be better to get him on the phone and give him an earful!
But will realise when he's (much) older that granny was right all along...
