I saw a man in his late sixties fix a broken café chair with only a coin, a keyring, and a calmness that wouldn’t go away a few weeks ago. Younger people were already filming the “fail” for Instagram around him. They were half laughing and half mad that they had to stand.
He didn’t say a word. He just grumbled, “They don’t make them like they used to,” tightened a screw with the coin, checked the chair’s balance, and then sat back down, feeling satisfied and quiet.
I could tell that he didn’t care. There was no rush, no drama, and no hope that someone else would fix it.
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The quiet strength of people who were always comfortable as kids
If you ask a psychologist about people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, they will often use the word “resilience.” Not the kind of bravery you see in movies. It looks like it would be boring from the outside.
A lot of them learned how to deal with pain without saying it was pain. They walked to school in the rain, waited weeks for a letter, and only had three TV channels and one phone for the whole family. Their nervous systems grew up without getting notifications and small rewards all the time.
That doesn’t mean they’re “better.” Their brains were just wired to wait, be patient, and not get quick fixes.
A therapist I talked to told me what a normal session is like with a client who was born in 1955.
He came in after he lost his job at 64. He was worried because his wife was sick, he didn’t have a lot of money saved up, and yes, he was worried.
But the way he talked was not like what she was used to. Don’t say things like “I’m broken” or “I can’t take this.” He said, “I’ve been through worse.” A plan, not a miracle.
He got a part-time job, stopped spending so much money, and started volunteering at a repair café. By the time they were done with therapy a few months later, his life wasn’t glamorous. It was just stable again.
Psychologists say that this way of dealing with problems is linked to something simple: going through small, manageable problems over and over again while the brain was still growing.
Power outages, oil shortages, strikes, parents who worked long hours, and toys that broke and stayed broken.
These kids had to deal with being bored and angry. That constant low-level challenge changed how the brain works for calming down, solving problems, and seeing things from different angles.
These days, a lot of those little problems are taken away on purpose. Apps, services, and endless entertainment come to the rescue before you even have time to get angry.
We make things easier, but we also slowly get rid of the “callus” that older generations built up without even knowing it.
9 mental strengths that people born in the 1960s and 1970s have but don’t talk about.
Psychologists who look at patterns across generations don’t make the past seem better than it was. They see both strength and pain.
But when they talk about people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, they keep using the term “nine mental muscles.”
First, a lot of patience. They are used to waiting for money, news, and deliveries. It’s not a big deal to wait.
Second, not much drama. It was normal to be upset, not a brand. Your feelings didn’t make you who you are because you didn’t tell everyone how you felt all the time.
Third, “good enough” thinking. The goal was to get everything just right for the wedding photos and clothes for Sunday. Every day of life was not planned.
Fourth, a way of thinking about fixing things. If something broke, you tried to fix it before throwing it away. The default setting was not “What should I buy next?” but “How do we save this?”
Fifth, the right to privacy of feelings. People wrote in journals, wrote letters, and talked late at night instead of sharing too much online. People felt more at ease with silence and taking their time to think when they talked about their feelings in smaller groups.
Sixth: a focus on being committed. You worked longer, stayed married longer, and spent more time with friends. Yes, sometimes too long, but the need to run away at the first sign of trouble was much less strong.
Seventh: being able to handle being bored. Long car rides, waiting rooms, and afternoons when there’s nothing to do. Those empty spaces made people daydream, be creative, and have a kind of mental openness that is hard to find now.
Eighth: having hope based on what is real. Many of them saw changes in society, such as the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, and the rise of environmental awareness. They had to push for years, but they finally saw that things could get better.
Ninth: a strong sense of who you are outside of your work. It didn’t mean “I’m a failure” right away when I got a bad grade or had a bad day. Roles, values, and relationships had a bigger impact on self-concept than preferences, scores, or metrics.
Let’s be honest: no one has all of these strengths every single day.
But when you put them all together, they make a quiet mental toolbox that most people don’t know how to use in their daily lives.
Psychologists are now interested in how we can relearn these skills on purpose.
How to get back those “old-school” strengths in a world that moves too quickly
You don’t have to have been born in the 1970s to use some of its mental wiring.
Therapists often suggest small habits that look silly but slowly rebuild the same muscles.
One of them is “intentional waiting.” Pick one thing every day that you won’t get better at: standing in line, walking instead of riding, or not keeping track of the delivery. Don’t grab your phone if you want to speed things up.
Another piece of advice is to fix one small thing every week. You can fix a broken mug, tighten a screw, or sew up a sock. You’re not only saving things, but you’re also teaching your brain how to solve problems.
When people have trouble with things that their parents seemed to handle easily, they often feel bad about themselves.
That guilt is too much to bear and doesn’t help. You didn’t have the same mental environment and stressors as you did.
Start from where you are. Choose one thing to do, like staying in a conversation about a relationship for five more minutes or not replacing an appliance right away when it starts to squeak.
Little things that show you’re committed are better than big promises.
A common mistake is to make this a new project for being perfect.
You don’t want to look like someone from the 1970s. You are picking tools that fit your needs, values, and schedule.
A lot of the time, psychologists tell their clients something simple:
We can’t go back in time, but we can learn from the best things that happened then.
This is a small “mental strengths” toolbox you can use when life feels too fragile to be real:
- Every day, take a moment to wait on purpose.
- Change or fix the use of one thing every week.
- Keep one part of your life private and out of the public eye.
- Set aside regular times when you don’t use screens and do nothing.
- Stay with one hard task for five more minutes than you normally would.
- Ask an older family member how they got through a hard time and really listen to what they say.
Generational wisdom isn’t a work of art; it’s a raw material. People over the age of 50, especially those who grew up before constant comfort, are often happy to share it if someone asks.
The unexpected benefit of looking back to move forward
You won’t just hear nostalgia if you really listen to people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. You hear plans. Handling things without calling it coping.
Many of them are shocked to see that what they thought was “just normal life” now looks like something out of a psychologist’s book on emotional training.
Being okay with feeling bad, thinking about the future, and not talking about all of your worries until they aren’t as bad.
You don’t have to agree with everything that era stood for to see that its limits gave it some rare strengths. The question is not “Were they better?” The question is, “What did their world teach them that mine doesn’t?”
Right now, our culture values speed, self-expression, and making things your own. That really helps with mental health, for people who are on the outside, and for everyday ease.
But when you share every feeling, take away every discomfort, and see every delay as a design flaw, something is lost. The mind becomes less accustomed to enduring discomfort that is not harmful.
Not as good at knowing when things are bad and when they are bad.
It’s weird how good it feels to get those old strengths back.
Not having to go through more pain. To be less scared of pain.
Think of a mix: the emotional language of today with the hard habits of the past. Therapy apps and neighbors who lend you tools.
Take care of yourself, but also have faith that you can handle one more wave.
You can still get that mix, even if you weren’t born until after the 70s.
It starts with little things that would have been perfectly normal back then, like waiting, fixing things, staying, and listening.
That could be the secret of that time. They didn’t mean to be “mentally strong.” They just had to deal with tough times that made them stronger. We can still use some of that strength if we’re okay with things not going as smoothly as they could.
Main Point and DetailWhat the Reader Gets
Resilience is something you learn, not something you get. Kids in the 1960s and 1970s often faced small setbacks, delays, and everyday problems. It helps you see your current problems as opportunities to learn and grow instead of things that can’t be changed.
You can pick up old-fashioned habits Being patient, fixing things yourself, and putting up with pain all help you build mental strength. Gives useful tips on how to build “vintage” resilience in today’s world.
Combining strengths from different generations Finding balance means combining how you feel now with how you dealt with tough times in the past. Gives a better way to deal with too much stimulation and emotional shutdown.
Questions and Answers:
Question 1: What kinds of mental strengths do people who were kids in the 1960s and 1970s usually have?
Question 2: Can younger generations become just as strong without going through the same things?
Question 3: Isn’t this just making the past sound better than it really was and not talking about the problems that were there?
Question 4: How can I learn these strengths if my parents didn’t teach them to me?
Question 5: What is one simple thing I can do this week to make these “old-school” mental muscles stronger?
