You think that everything adults tell you is bogus when you’re a kid and a teenager navigating through life. You roll your eyes during every uncomfortable preach session they give you; telling you that you must do this before doing that and that must happen in order for this to happen and blah, blah, blah. It goes in one ear and out the other. We always think that as kids (more so teens and even young adults) we just know better than adults. I mean, sure, sit’s not always the case where every adult tells you the right thing, but in situations where the adult– i.e. your parents, mentor, therapist, etc.– is giving you advice about life through personal experience… even then we don’t listen to them–
Until we officially become the adults.
I’ve been quite vocal about how different my perspective on life as been since turning 30 earlier this year. I briefly spoke about the idea of a “Saturn’s return”, which occurs roughly between the ages of 27 – 31 when you go through this major transitional stage of your life and figure out… well, life. Sure, we have our 20s to discover ourselves and experience life in ways we weren’t able to as teenagers. In our 20s, we are college students; some living away from home or others commuting to their classes in hope to graduate with their degree in four years. Some of us are working their first 9 to 5 jobs making their first bit of pocket change that is solely ours. Needless to say, our 20s are reserved for uncertainty and experimentation; it’s the time when we’re suppose to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.
But something definitely shifts when you’re nearing your late 20s and gearing for your 30s. I swear, it’s like something chemically changes when you reach a certain age. This is something I’ve witness with a lot of people within my age range; once careless and wild turned into responsible and a civilized human in society. Sure, everyone grows up at one point in life, but I guess it just hits different knowing you’re nearing 30; who knows.
Needless to say, the older we get the more we begin to reflect on the things we were told when we were younger. For me, these moments occur when I find myself being in these same situations I was once told about. I can’t help but shake my head, regretting not listening to this specific advice the first time around.
And now, we are those adults saying the same things to the generations beneath us; they roll their eyes, huff and puff all annoyed that some adult is giving them some unsolicited advice. We tell them that we were just like them at their age, in which they’ll sigh even louder thinking that we don’t have any clue in how they feel or think we’re cringe for even trying to relate to them. We’ve been there; all of us.
I don’t regret not following the advice that I got from adults when I was younger. I think it’s inevitable that we don’t; we simply do not see things in the same lens as we do when we are older, and I think our first reaction to getting advice from someone older is, “I still have time to do what I want about this situation.” Sure, that much is true until you realized that you’re now 30 and reminiscing about the days when you were counting down to finally being 21-years-old.
You too will come to the realization one day that everything they told you about life was pretty spot on, and they were right all along.
Letters From Liz. 