Growing up
As a society we fear in a way the grown-up world. It is a place of responsibility, sometimes a place of drudgery and pain. We live in denial thinking that childhood, naivety and ignorance is the ideal state.
Yet childhood is often not what we make it out to be, even in this age where we idealize childhood there are children who suffer from set-backs, a loss of home and family, and a loss of trust.
What then is the ideal state? I think that it is facing reality head on. Recognizing that life isn't all sunshine and lolly pops. I think the ideal state takes into account our failings as well as the failings of others and accepts them as a part of life. I think it's ideal when we recognize the need to take care of ourselves and others. That even when you've failed or when others have failed you, that there are opportunities for good in that failure.
Sometimes discretion is better than openness. Sometimes anger is a good thing, especially when not showing anger makes you seem indecisive and/or weak.
That's a revelation that has been hard for me to learn, that anger can be a good thing. So often I've subverted my anger and tried to admit faults when I've been confronted. This recently has made me seem dishonest when I was trying to be completely honest. This is where discretion should come in and make us think about what the impact of our words will be and to decide what is really relevant to the current situation.
Adulthood, I think, should be a time when we are mastering the intricacies of human behavior, basically learning wisdom. That is something that the world needs a bit more of.
~SG
As a society we fear in a way the grown-up world. It is a place of responsibility, sometimes a place of drudgery and pain. We live in denial thinking that childhood, naivety and ignorance is the ideal state.
Yet childhood is often not what we make it out to be, even in this age where we idealize childhood there are children who suffer from set-backs, a loss of home and family, and a loss of trust.
What then is the ideal state? I think that it is facing reality head on. Recognizing that life isn't all sunshine and lolly pops. I think the ideal state takes into account our failings as well as the failings of others and accepts them as a part of life. I think it's ideal when we recognize the need to take care of ourselves and others. That even when you've failed or when others have failed you, that there are opportunities for good in that failure.
Sometimes discretion is better than openness. Sometimes anger is a good thing, especially when not showing anger makes you seem indecisive and/or weak.
That's a revelation that has been hard for me to learn, that anger can be a good thing. So often I've subverted my anger and tried to admit faults when I've been confronted. This recently has made me seem dishonest when I was trying to be completely honest. This is where discretion should come in and make us think about what the impact of our words will be and to decide what is really relevant to the current situation.
Adulthood, I think, should be a time when we are mastering the intricacies of human behavior, basically learning wisdom. That is something that the world needs a bit more of.
~SG
