Growing up is hard

Growing up is hard:

Growing up is hard.

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It’s tough.

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It sucks sometimes.

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You have to be responsible.

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You have to take care of yourself.

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You have to find food every day.

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You have to find a good job.

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You have to show your parents.

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You have to get a girlfriend.

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You have to get married.

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You have to buy a house.

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You have to deal with heartbreak.

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You have to invest in your future.

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You have to do laundry.

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You have to keep up with your friends.

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You have to save money.

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You have to read.

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You have to learn.

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You have to do a lot.

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Being a grown-up sucks sometimes.

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Sometimes I imagine what it’s like to be a kid.

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To have no responsibility.

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To have not a care in the world.

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To worry about showing up, learning and having fun.

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That was it.

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Yet I took it so seriously.

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My childhood.

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Drilled by my parents.

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No relationships.

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Study hard.

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Do well.

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Get into a good university.

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Get into medicine.

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All drilled into me as a child.

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Did I miss my childhood?

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Yes and no.

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Do I wish I screwed up more?

Yes.

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Do I wish I failed more?

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Yes.

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Do I wish I had more fun?

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Yes.

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But those things didn’t happen.

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Instead I chose to be mature.

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To be an adult.

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To take care of my siblings.

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To be a good role model.

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Why couldn’t I just be a bad one?

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Why couldn’t I just screw up?

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I couldn’t.

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Or so I thought.

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Now as an adult, I feel like I’m screwing up every day.

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Failing from one day to the next.

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All those things I mentioned at the beginning, I’m trying every day.

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Yet, I still feel like I’m failing.

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What does everyone else feel?

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Does anyone else have life figured out?

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No.

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The realization I had as an adult is no one has anything figured out.

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We’re all just making it up as we go.

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We were given a blueprint in our childhood.

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One we didn’t choose.

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And chose to follow that.

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Some of us made different choices than the ones our parents and environments wanted for us.

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Most of us just did what we were told.

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Passing through life as if one day it’ll all make sense.

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But it doesn’t.

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It never does.

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One day you’ll wake up in your 50s wondering where did your life go.

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So instead, choose to be a kid.

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Choose to enjoy.

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Choose to have fun.

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Don’t take life so seriously.

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You don’t have to grow up fully.

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You should always have that childlike sense of the world.

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The imagination you had as a kid.

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Asking why to everything.

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Never lose than wonder.

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That ability to be wowed by something.

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We need more moments like that.

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More moments where we can feel like a kid again.

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You don’t want to fully grow up.

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Growing up is hard.

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