What does being an adult really mean? I dare to say that the perception of becoming an adult is living a boring life. Being an adult means growing up, doing “adult” things, and not doing things that children or young people are doing, because being an adult seems to demand your life is boring.
I remember, when I was about 40 years old and was on my way to go skateboarding, I walked with my skateboard an my neighbour was sitting outside, and the first thing he said when he saw me was “Hey, aren’t you too old for going skateboarding?”.
NO, I was not too old to go skateboarding. Things like for example skateboarding does not have an age limit, as many many other things in life, they don’t have age limits, even if many people live their life imagining things have age limits.
I have always said, you should do what you feel like doing because life is about living and dreaming big and NOT about living a boring life.
It’s funny how when we are young we have dreams and most of the dreams are HUGE and we believe our dreams might become reality, but then somewhere between 10 and 20 years old it changes, most people are forced into a mold where dreaming big and sometimes it feels like just dreaming in general is forbidden, and if you dare to dream and talk about your dream people shoot you down and say something like “grow up, that’s not possible, you are not a kid anymore, you are an adult and should know better”.
But something happened in my life, that I have yet to exactly determine what it was that kept me dreaming and dreaming BIG even when I got older. I’m now 48 years old and I still dream big and pursue my dreams.
Sometimes when I pursue my dreams I don’t reach them and crash and burn, but then comes the times when I succeed and my dream becomes reality. And even the times when I crash and burn, I often get up and try again, because that is how you succeed in life.
Of course life is not only about dreaming, life also has responsibilities and my take is that the difference with being a child and an adult is that as an adult we have to take a different kind of responsibility in our actions and behaviour. Of course there are times when we fail, but then we need to learn from it and try again. I believe this is also what being an adult is, learning from our failures and trying again.
But then, once a while someone comes along, a kid, who is better being an adult as a small kid than most adults will ever be AND at the same time this kid is living life as a kid and enjoying life.
I have seen a lot in life, I have experienced happiness and I have experienced pain and sadness. And already at my age (I was 44 when this happened time) I have experienced more in my life than most people will experience in their entire lifetime. And then this happened to me, I was teaching snowboarding to this kid who has a special place in my heart. He told me these words:
If you fall, you have to get up and try again,
Because that is how you learn and succeed in life.
And that is how I want to live my life.
This moment is a moment that I will always remember, because there are no words to describe the feeling when a child becomes the wise man who teaches me about life. This moment gave me hope for life.
Be like this kid, dream big and live with the wisdom he has.