When you’re a kid, you have one huge expectation; “I can’t wait to grow up so that nobody bosses me round the clock, no one dares to disturb me when my favourite show is on air, thoughtless of sending me on an errand when I’m playing”. The list goes on, and if that was not on your childhood wishlist you sure are one of a kind. I call it the “every child’s dream”.
Alongside our childhood comes this unadulterated package of truth and sincerity. Telling that man sitting by you in a restaurant answering a call saying he’s home that he’s lying. Telling your mom her dressing is ugly when it is. Tell your dad you don’t like what he got for you when you don’t like it, that childlike sincerity. Being faithful to what you know, to yourself (even though you don’t exactly know what that is yet), crying when it hurts, squealing when you’re excited, get back with your friends after they hurt you and you told them, forgiving as quickly and easily as you get sad and happy, being totally you.
But then we ‘grow up’, understand the world is not always what we thought of it, we compromise here and there. We lie in so far as we stand to gain something, dilute the truth in order not to hurt feelings, put on a lot of fake smiles and act like all is well. “How are you?” “I’m fine thank you” is the answer most of the time, even when it’s quite visible that we aren’t. This is the reality of the “every child’s dream” we once had, not all we imagined.
So did we grow up? Grow up into the person our parents thought and hoped us to be? Did we grow up into that sincere kid who blurted out his/her mind or did we grow put of that person? Did we grow up into the no compromise truth person or grow out of it? Take a moment, a deep breath, a trip down memory lane and ask yourself; do I miss that person I was growing into? Did I Grow Up into him/her? Or did I Grow Out of him/her?
