Growing Old Does Not [necessarily have to] Mean Growing Up

When you take a look back at previous generations, the words 'work ethic' simply meant that you did the task that needed done immediately, and you did it with all the effort that you could muster.

Oh, and you never complained. Ever. Even if you walked ten miles to school, each way of course, through a blizzard, in 6 feet of snow, and uphill both ways. Heaven forbid if you complained a little bit.

Our grandparents, and even perhaps our parents, did not take it lightly [according to various reports that I have received] if you maybe wanted to wait a bit longer before doing the assigned chore or job. In their eyes, it more than often meant that you were either a) lazy, or

b) procrastinating, or c) exhibiting both of the preceding traits that 'all young people possess'. 'If you don't learn to work now, or get a job, or stop playing all day, you won't amount to a hill of beans.'

Does any of this sound even a little bit familiar?

Well, speaking for myself, I 'grew up', and I got a job, and bought a house, got my licence and a car...I opened a bank account and got myself debit cards and credit cards...I got married and started raising kids...that is generally, more or less, how life manifests itself, in varying degrees and in no particular order, to each and every one of us.

To me, the fact that I am getting older [and much faster than I am comfortable with] in no way

translates into me having to surrender the things that I enjoy now, which is more than likely a variation of the things that I liked when I was younger. The things that I enjoyed to participate in when I was younger has formed my personality and has helped mold me into the person I am today, for better or for worse, like it or lump it.

Just to throw something else in here, my generation read comic books and played video games and played cowboys and indians and shot each other with invisible guns...maybe we were given a little more elbow room to actually be kids and behave like children. Having chores and responsibilities as a child teaches them and prepares them for adulthood. I do not at all deny that. But as much as some may think that kids were 'lazy', etc., in my generation, maybe parents of previous generations were just a wee bit narrow-minded when it came to envisioning what being a kid should entail.

I am a big kid at heart. And to the chagrin of many, I do not plan on changing that part of me. It is deep-rooted. It is a large part of who I am. To want me to lose that would be comparable to asking me to cut off a limb, or two, and continue on with my life as if I had never had those limbs to begin with. And I don't believe that analogy is extreme.

Take a minute and reflect on your childhood: remove every experience and interest that you had when you were growing up, and, just for argument sake, place yourself in a situation where you are a child growing up in your grandparents' home 20 or 30 years before. How would that have changed what kind of person you have become? I am not at all saying that you would have been worse off, or anything like that...I am just making a point that these things shape the person that you become.

So, I don't plan on changing that much. I still enjoy the occasional comic book, video game and 40 years from now I hope to be listening to the exact same music that I like now. I don't like the idea that I have to conform to something simply because it is the 'status quo'...I guess that is what makes me 'different', and to tell you the truth, I'm glad, and I am proud of it.

So the next time someone tells you to 'grow up', allow yourself a smile. Stay young and stay free-spirited!

L8r

J