when i grow up
Is it just me, or do other thirty-somethings out there still earnestly think in terms of "what I'm going to be when I grow up"?
I remember when I was 10 or so and people started asking me the question, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" They're teaching you to set goals and plan for the future. It's a cultural conspiracy, but not a bad one. I remember thinking, "I need to figure out an answer to that question."
And I did. I wanted to be a missionary, a college graduate, a husband, and a father. But now that I've done all that and I'm officially a grown up, I still don't feel like a grown up.
I still feel more like that little kid who was planning for the future.
I'm 35 now and I still think about what I'm going to do or become "when I grow up". I don't feel at all different from a 16-year-old preparing to take my ACT exam or a young returned missionary changing my major.
And I'm done having kids, got a Master's degree, and have had the same career for the past 8 years. Aren't I supposed to feel grown up? How should I be thinking?
I think part of the reason is that I sometimes still have trouble doing my home teaching or getting up in the morning. Those are things I always tell myself that grown ups don't have trouble doing.
And that's the bottom line. Part of the reason I still think of myself as a kid is a defense. I don't want to feel like a failure so I think of the ways I know I'm still imperfect as goals I'm still working to achieve. To think that how I am is "grown up" feels like admitting defeat. It means that I am the person I'm going to be rather than just a child with dreams and potential that people look at as an unfinished work.
I'm not a morning person. I'm a procrastinator. I lose my temper sometimes. I waste time. I don't apply myself as wholly as I could to my work or my church service. I have favorite sins that I know I should give up (Alma 22:18). I could be more forgiving, generous, kind, thoughtful, and honest as a husband, father, employee, and friend.
So that's what I want to be when I grow up.
Is there a sad day in my future where I just have to get real and admit that I AM grown up now and it's too late to be all those things, or can I still grow up? I know this isn't an either/or proposition, but can I still think of myself as not grown up, or do I need to admit that and replace it with something else (guilt and self-loathing?)?
And there's another part of being grown up that I don't feel ready for yet. Do I have to quit playing video games and going snowboarding? Do I have to want to be productive SO BADLY that I don't want to sleep in any more? Do I have to quit climbing trees, stomping in puddles, and doing donuts in the parking lot? Do I have to feel bored (or worse tired) at the prospect of going to a midnight showing of the latest blockbuster comic-book-hero movie?
If so, I don't want to be grown up.
But I do want to be more mature and responsible and serviceable and holy and learned. That's for certain.
So unless someone tells me what else I should be doing, I'm just going to go on thinking of myself as "not a grown-up". Yet.
I remember when I was 10 or so and people started asking me the question, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" They're teaching you to set goals and plan for the future. It's a cultural conspiracy, but not a bad one. I remember thinking, "I need to figure out an answer to that question."
And I did. I wanted to be a missionary, a college graduate, a husband, and a father. But now that I've done all that and I'm officially a grown up, I still don't feel like a grown up.
I still feel more like that little kid who was planning for the future.
I'm 35 now and I still think about what I'm going to do or become "when I grow up". I don't feel at all different from a 16-year-old preparing to take my ACT exam or a young returned missionary changing my major.
And I'm done having kids, got a Master's degree, and have had the same career for the past 8 years. Aren't I supposed to feel grown up? How should I be thinking?
I think part of the reason is that I sometimes still have trouble doing my home teaching or getting up in the morning. Those are things I always tell myself that grown ups don't have trouble doing.
And that's the bottom line. Part of the reason I still think of myself as a kid is a defense. I don't want to feel like a failure so I think of the ways I know I'm still imperfect as goals I'm still working to achieve. To think that how I am is "grown up" feels like admitting defeat. It means that I am the person I'm going to be rather than just a child with dreams and potential that people look at as an unfinished work.
I'm not a morning person. I'm a procrastinator. I lose my temper sometimes. I waste time. I don't apply myself as wholly as I could to my work or my church service. I have favorite sins that I know I should give up (Alma 22:18). I could be more forgiving, generous, kind, thoughtful, and honest as a husband, father, employee, and friend.
So that's what I want to be when I grow up.
Is there a sad day in my future where I just have to get real and admit that I AM grown up now and it's too late to be all those things, or can I still grow up? I know this isn't an either/or proposition, but can I still think of myself as not grown up, or do I need to admit that and replace it with something else (guilt and self-loathing?)?
And there's another part of being grown up that I don't feel ready for yet. Do I have to quit playing video games and going snowboarding? Do I have to want to be productive SO BADLY that I don't want to sleep in any more? Do I have to quit climbing trees, stomping in puddles, and doing donuts in the parking lot? Do I have to feel bored (or worse tired) at the prospect of going to a midnight showing of the latest blockbuster comic-book-hero movie?
If so, I don't want to be grown up.
But I do want to be more mature and responsible and serviceable and holy and learned. That's for certain.
So unless someone tells me what else I should be doing, I'm just going to go on thinking of myself as "not a grown-up". Yet.
posted by Ben at 18:10
2 Comments:
As a man who doesn't have any children, much less unsure of whether I even want to have children. Who only has an Associate's Degree. Who has only been in my current career field for less than two years, a field that I might not even be in two years from now, I can say that you are a grown up. Whereas my 9 year old nephew looks at me and says I am a grown up. Personal growth or goal accomplishment is an entirely subjective matter. Who is to say that by sleeping in or snowboarding that you are not an adult? Are you comparing yourself to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents? I say that adjustments need to be made in that comparison. Life was certainly more hardscrabble for those who came before us. My great-grandparents didn't have the option to sleep in because they need to get chores on the farm done right away, because they had an entire day of chores ahead of them. If you don't want to get up at 6am to milk the cows because you have no cows then there should be no reciprocal "didn't milk the cows at 6am" guilt. If you great-grandmother had free time to snowboard who is to say that she wouldn't have been the greatest female snowboarding pioneer to live? I say let the guilt of enjoying a normal adult grown up past time like snowboarding, or going to a midnight movie release fade away. There are more adults in line at midnight releases now-a-days than kids. One of my favorite quotes from a Smashing Pumpkins song was "If I knew where I was going I would already be there." That USED to be one of my favorite quotes, because if I knew where I was going I now know that I would want the experience of getting there. I also realize now that I have NO way of knowing where I am going or what I will be doing in the future. My life has dramatically changed in the past 2 1/2 years and it will continue to change as I evolve in my personal growth. For me is being a grown up not going out to the bars multiple times a week to get drunk? Perhaps. I do know that because I have decided to become more focused on personal goal achieving that I find myself doing that less and less often. But that doesn't mean that I have to rid myself of that aspect immediately, or even in moderation at all in the long run. From one grown up to another I say don't worry about reaching the "grown up" finish line, enjoy the race for what it is and let come what may.
I remember when I was thirty-something and wondered to myself "When am I going to grow up?" Well, I can't sleep past 6:30 anymore, so I guess I've grown up, but there are still those aspects of my personality and behavior that I'm trying to change. I splash in a puddle that the lawn sprinklers make in the driveway at the temple. It's good to be childlike, but not childish. Thank the Lord for each new day, work hard, play a little, and never stop growing up.
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