Childhood v/s Adulthood

This eternally running battle has been the focus of almost all of ours at some point in time. So, why not try to give it (and us) a rest?

I spent my whole childhood wishing I were older and now I’m spending my adulthood wishing I were younger.

– Ricky Schroder

By a show of hands, how many of us consider ourselves to be all grown up? Better yet, let’s answer this, how many of us are ready to accept we are all grown up? How many of us are ready to accept that we are now supposed to take responsibility for what we are doing? How many of us (as shown in the picture) would prefer adult responsibilities over utter nonsense?

If any of these questions results in a positive for you, I applaud and appreciate it, because none of them for me does. I am still not able to accept the fact that I am being treated as an adult or a grown up by the world. That is because in my mind, I am not. However, this is not how I had this epiphany. This happened to me while I was on a flight of stairs. (Boy, am I lowering the bar for epiphanies these days?)

There is a whole lot of things that is going on these days and I, being the immature person that I am, am not taking any of it seriously. People around me are frantic, up till 2 every night, and asking me why am I not doing so. “I am only going to focus on what really matters” is how I respond. When I said this the last time I did, I asked myself this question, “Is my idea of what really matters actually correct, or am I just out of zeal to do anything?” (As it turns out, my idea is actually correct).

Let’s see how many of us can relate to the following statements: We’ve lost a lot of enthusiasm about many things, which include but are not limited to, going out (unless it’s for work), postponing almost everything (unless it’s for work) and socializing (unless it’s for work). These things have been replaced with sleeping (a lot), consuming a lot of content, whether it’s in the form of streaming services or music and a whole lot (and by a whole lot I mean a hell of a whole lot!) of social media.

The times have changed, and so have we. For me, whatever is being done in the current times that I’ve mentioned in the previous paragraph are completely overlapping, in terms of spending time, but it does not in my very, very humble opinion, contribute to development, which when we think about it is quite counter-intuitive with the whole philosophy of “doing what matters”.

I’ll try to divulge how. Sleeping, as much fun as it is, does not provide us with any sort of exposure to the external world. As for the streaming services, they have been deemed the “books for modern age”, but as soon as it stops being entertaining, we look for alternatives. A little known fact, we find the stuff that doesn’t allow our brain to think too much to be engaging (try to observe the next time). As for social media, as big of a blessing it is, again, in my very, very humble opinion, it is not being used to the true potential it possesses, at least for the general public. But that’s food for another one of our conversations.

Please don’t interpret it in the form that all of childhood’s facets are amazing, because there were a lot of inhibitors when we were kids. We weren’t able to make a lot of our own decisions. We had a set bed time, which happens to be something we aren’t used to anymore. But the one thing that I actually miss about being a kid is that there was a zeal, a spark, an enthusiasm in me which I am now working towards developing. Everything was awesome back then, everything I looked at had a story to tell me. I’d ask 20,000 questions about a cup in which I drank milk. I’d run till me lungs couldn’t function anymore, and then some. I had endless energy, I talked more, laughed more, asked more and understood more.

And I believe most of us could use a bit of that energy, couldn’t we? So, let’s try to hold each other a little accountable for being more energetic, and less lethargic!

Thanks a lot for your time and effort to read the whole thing. If you like it, please share it with someone who you think might benefit from reading this. Until next time, stay awesome and stay happy. 🙂