Forty Things I Learned Before Turning 40: Lesson Nine
I learnt the importance of remaining young at heart. As a kid, I remember wanting to grow up so fast. So that I could have my independence, do whatever I wanted, not have to play by the rules set by the adults in my life. I look back on my childhood days and am grateful for the time I did have to be carefree, as I think in this day and age, children don’t spend as much time getting to be ‘just kids.’ The world around us has changed so much and unfortunately that has led to kids growing up quicker than I know I ever did, or had to.
Recently I saw a quote that really hit home for me. “Someday we went out to play with our friends, unknowingly that it was our last time.” It made me go back into the filing cabinet in my head, sifting through the memories stored over the years, trying to work out when that last time was for me. I can vividly remember the backyard from my childhood, as my parents still live in the same house. A lot has changed in the yard now, but I can still picture how it was back then; how it looked in the late afternoon as the colours in the sky changed with the sun going down behind the hills beyond our house. I’d be lost trying to count the number of afternoons we’d be out the back, (and when I say out the back, I mean all the open space beyond our backyard, which is now built in with houses) playing with friends until dusk turned to night and you knew it was time for dinner. It’s true. There would have been a day that I walked up the back ramp, not knowing that I wouldn’t ever go back out to play again.
A Sam Smith lyric from his latest album, Love Goes, also lends itself to this sentiment:
“Do you even think about it?
The way that we changed the world
And don’t it make you sad
That we’ll never be kids again?”
When we’re young, we feel as though when we grow up we can do anything. And we can’t wait for that moment we become an adult, so we can prove to ourselves and others that we can stand on our own two feet. Little did we know as kids, how tough ‘adulting’ actually is. I wish that I could go back to tell my younger self to enjoy those carefree moments and not be in a hurry to become a grown-up. Looking back, it often seems like being a kid is much easier.
In an episode of Sex and the City, Carrie writes at the end of an episode, “When you’re young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don’t leap at all because there’s not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there’s no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?” As we grow up, we lose that carefree attitude in favour of being risk averse. We question every decision before we (in most instances) talk ourselves out of doing anything at all.
Holocaust survivor, clinical psychologist, lecturer and New York Times bestseller author, Dr. Edith Eger has a different spin on it. She says in a conversation with Brene Brown on Brown’s ‘Unlocking Us’ podcast, “Growing up is much more fun than being a child because you are child-like. You ask a child, “Why do you do that?” The kid would say, “Because I feel like it.” The kid doesn’t care about consequences. So, I like my Hungarian chocolate cake, but I know I have a very bad scoliosis, and if I gain weight, I have more pain, so I don’t have to run from the chocolate cake. I can look at it and I can decide whether I will reach for it or not, so that’s why I like the idea of, to being child-like at 93 but not childish, to be not smart but to be wise.”
I’ve learnt that it’s important to remain young at heart, use the wisdom gained through life experience to help make good life decisions, steer me away from significant danger, but still have fun when I can. A quote I saw a long time ago, and try to remind myself of often is: “I plan to look back on my life and say “Wow, that was adventure” not ‘Wow, I sure felt safe”.” And up until this point of my life, I can honestly say the adventure is going well. In all aspects of life, I’ve grabbed opportunities as they’ve come my way, taken risks, challenged myself to move beyond my comfort zone.
I heard Dr. Neil Carrington (a teacher who went on to become CEO for a not-for-profit organisation that supports abused and neglected children) speak recently. One thing that resonated with me was how he described the people he likes most to work with. He used a Venn diagram, with three circles, labelled ‘Dream big,’ ‘Get the work done’ and ‘Know how to have fun.’ It affirmed to me the type of person I always try to be and the type of people I surround myself with. In and out of work, when I find myself in a serious situation, I attempt to demonstrate the wisdom of Mary Poppins: “In every job that must be done; There is an element of fun; You find the fun and snap! The job’s a game.” Whenever there is the opportunity to, I always try to choose child-like, over serious-Sally.
