Something to Think About

Something to Think About..

“Don’t grow up too fast now.”

I’m sure all of you have heard that one. You possibly can’t forget that one line where everyone scolds you and reminds you each and every single day, only because their opinion of a childhood (adolescent years) differentiates from yours. Soon you come to start believing their version rather than your own, because as time passes you start to over-think and doubt yourself, you believe in the wrong because you’re oblivious to the right. But honestly, if you really… really take the time to sit down and just think about it, does that really make any sense at all? Laughing uncontrollably because you’re forced to thinking you have to smile like an idiot all the time? Imagine this… A lake, a very still, calm lake silently flowing in a small town, when suddenly, someone crosses paths with it and throws a small pebble into the lake.  Life is like a pebble and you are the lake. It is still and calm until a person comes along and a pebble is thrown, and that’s when you’re really alive… because you’re all grown up and allowed to take risks.

Sure your parents care for you and want you to enjoy your childhood and have a bright future, but everything that you do now is going to affect you in the future, maybe not tomorrow or a week or even a month later, but somewhere down the road every action you’ve ever taken will come running back to you. By growing up, they don’t mean exposing yourself in material you can’t even call clothes… no growing up is about discovering yourself as a person, experiencing new things, things you’re not able to understand as a child.

And honestly, personally, I can’t wait to grow up… to grow up quickly. I want to age and become old enough to support myself; to become mature and independent. I want to grow up because even I feel there’s more to life than just waking up almost every single morning to just walk to school or work… to walk on the exact same path on the exact same day. Is that what you really wanted when you said you wanted to grow up? To be imprisoned by not only society but yourself? Think about it… You see the same faces, sit in the same seats, talk to the same people, go to the same places for… one… whole… year. You and I, we basically do the exact same things all over and over and over again for 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 525 949 minutes and 31 557 600 seconds… the exact same routine for one whole year.

We all want to experience new things, we all want to be able to do all the good things in life, to be able to meet new people, and see bigger things… greater things than what our towns have to offer. And that’s why I can’t wait to grow up, life is short but you’re still not living it. Face it, life doesn’t have many moments that you can actually cherish as a child. Most childhoods start off as a battle, all alone in the world… but you gradually become stronger as you age, as you experience new things, as you meet all these new people, you start to realise you were never really alone at all. You start to accept that not every family is perfect, that no one is perfect, and that even life isn’t perfect.

And that’s why I really want to grow up… not because I’ll have an excuse to wear skimpy clothes and go clubbing or be somewhat intimately involved with someone… but because there’s more to the world than being in the exact same place I grew up in, to have the exact same schedule every day. Sure it’d be nice to grow old and die with every one you went to school with, but it’d be amazing to go out and explore the almost perfect side of life… to take a jump and hope that the arms of faith will guide you. That there’s a family, waiting for you, not the kind you’re related to, but the one where you meet every single person along the way and in the end, you’re all so close you’re inseparable.

So yes, in fact, I do want to grow up quickly not because I’m eager to become an adult, to be all on my own but because I want to dream, I want to explore, I want to live… really live.

-          S.W