I just turned 27 and I'm feeling pensive. This is probably going to be very disjointed.
Out of all the people I grew up with and went to school/university with, I only know of a very small number (maybe 5 or 6?) who have gotten married. This is probably because most people I knew went to university, and I also think that nowadays people are moving away from the mentality of marriage being something you have to do by your mid-twenties or you're not a real man/woman.
There seems to be a switch that flips in some people's heads, the idea that once you get to age X, whatever that should be, you should forget about fun and frivolity and focus only on the Big Serious Things. Naturally this idea has never held much sway with me. See, many fun things don't magically stop being fun just because you reach age X. You've chosen some arbitrary number of years beyond which you declare something off-limits? Congratulations, you've just voluntarily made yourself more boring.
One of the things that really stuck with me from Randy Pausch's Last Lecture (by the way, it is well worth your time to both read the book and watch the free lecture) was the idea that you should "never lose the childlike wonder". The best people I have ever known have not only taken this mentality to heart but incorporated it in what they do and used it to produce some great things (by putting forward this idea I am not advocating that you spend all day playing video games and smoking weed, letting responsibilities fall by the wayside! Balance is key). These people are rarer than they should be. I'm wondering, what does it take to make a Rachael or a Stu, a Bob or a Carrie? Is it a matter of background? Can we bottle it? Could we spray it from a cropduster, make the world a better place?
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am 50, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things - including the fear of childishness and the desire to be grown-up." -- C. S. Lewis
Well, for what it's worth, my tuppence worth is this...
ReplyDeleteFor many people, for much of human history, there has been little else to aspire to from adulthood than to go through the motions of working for a living, creating a home and having a family life. There would be no time, resources or opportunity to do anything different. i.e. the lower half of Maslow's hierarchy.
What we are stumbling across now is freedom. Free time, relative wealth, education and opportunity have completely changed the playing field. There is suddenly power to aspire to a job you love, create an interesting life and think outside of the ordinary bubble. i.e. upper half of Maslow.
I think it is easy to become very disoriented here. Because becoming everything you can be as a person is not 'normal'. It bucks the trend. It is tempting to feel like you're doing something wrong. But, it's a massive opportunity, if you have no constraints, to follow your heart and do what you love every day provided you can sensibly maintain that lifestyle. And what happens when you do what you love is that you create things, you inspire people and generally contribute to social progress. Which, if you have the power to do, you also have the responsibility to do.
Katie