I visited the zoo not too long ago (a post coming that
soon) it dawned on me how entry fees to places especially tourist sites are a
bit on the high side. Now i pay full ‘adult’ prices for everything. Technically,
i have been an adult since age 18 but i paid discounted gate fees to most
events and tourist centers since i had a student ID. But these days, the story
is different. Everywhere i go, i am usually profiled as an adult therefore have
to pay full price. My students id card expired last year when I finished
university therefore I don’t get discounts on entry fees to most tourist sites.
Therefore society and my environment has already profiled me as an adult. But
the question is am i ready to be an adult? Being an adult means having
responsibilities and things to do finding work (or working for yourself) and
taking care of yourself. As an adult no one will tell me what to eat for
dinner, what time you have to go to bed and what to wear.
Being an adult is hard because you have to make every
decision yourself. And we all know some decisions will have negative
consequences. At least if you are a kid someone has to make judgment calls on
your behalf. I have always heard that people who are dying always regret things
they didn’t do and wish they have done than the actual things they did. But i
always wonder what it was these people didn’t get to do and what was
restraining them from doing it. Was it laziness, lack of motivation or
resources for them to do what they wanted to do? The thing is, we don’t live
unto ourselves. We have parents, friend and family and someway somehow we have
to account how we are living our lives to them. If you have desperate need for
cash to take care of yourself, you usually don’t wait for your dream job but
take the reasonable job that pays the bills whiles working your way towards
your dream job. In working towards the “ideal life” that is where burnout
happens and a lot of people decide to give it up altogether. The more you
settle for the reasonable version of everything, the more life becomes mediocre.
I have a few elderly friends and anytime we talk, they
usually talk about some key moments in their life they could have made a
change. But for some reason that change never happened or they never got round
to that change. So from where i stand it look like opportunities are rare and
far in between ones life. If you do not utilize the opportunity you see around
today, they might be gone in the blink of an eye. Yes when one door closes
another opens but how long do you have to wait for another door to open.
Therefore as a recently profiled adult i am beginning to
see that being an adult means there are three broad areas i have to look at.
They are responsibilities, opportunities and regrets. Growing and the art of
adulthood means performing your responsibilities in the best way possible. It
also means choosing a life and career path that you are comfortable with.
Taking advantages of opportunities as soon as you see them without giving
excuses because you never know when another opportunity like the one you have
might come.The road to being an adult is a big deal and it is its full of
choices and everyday as we sleep and wake we hope we make the right choice. The
right choice being the choice that would give us peace in soul and spirit.
So i am gradually getting the concept of adulthood. Right
now, adulthood means not having many regrets when you are ready to die.
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