"Growing old is mandatory; but growing up is optional."
-Unknown.
From the ages of 13-19, we are considered teenagers. Our teenage years are probably one of the most memorable times we will have in life. I just turned 20 years old two days ago, but obviously like I've said before that age is but a number. Even though just a few days ago I was still considered a teenager to the world, my mind set told me otherwise. Because of all the experiences and situations I went through in my past, it has helped me to mature my mind and ultimately myself as a person. The quote I put at the beginning of the blog entry is what I what to focus on. Just as the quote says, growing old is mandatory for everyone in life, but growing up is optional and ultimately a choice that we have to make in the end. I know people that are considered mature for their age, and vice versa, people that are considered immature for their age. Everyone is different, in how we decide to live our lives and in when we choose to grow up as a person. People go through different situations and experiences in life that may speed up or slow down the process of growing up as a person. When I say that, I don't mean that it will physically stop a person from aging or make a person age faster, but when I say that I mean mentally. These past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot. The things I think about ranges in subjects, but one of the subjects that was on my mind a lot those past weeks was the topic of "growing up". I was talking to my friend while eating one of these past Sundays, and we got on the topic of life in general. But one of the things that really stuck out to me was that even though we are such good friends now and have many things in common that we enjoy, we went through different things growing up and that's what made us into the type of people we are now. He told me of how his parents always had a set plan for him growing up, so now since he's in college he gets feelings of insecurity now that he has to make his own plans and decisions. For me it was the total opposite. I had to grow up doing things for myself so that I can get to where I am now, in the sense that my dad was always out of the house because when we first moved here he had to work multiple jobs and my birth mother left me at the age of 1. So all I had growing up was my grandmother and older brother at home throughout the day, and so I never had parents telling me to do this and that throughout the day. I never went to any tutor places, or took any musical instrument lessons. So it was difficult for me to try to relate with him on that topic, because I didn't know how it felt having my parents planning out everything for me. But than since I know how to plan and make decisions on my own, since I had to start early in life, I was able to give him advice on how he could maybe start getting over this insecurity and live his life making decisions on his own. God really does work in mysterious ways. People go through different things in life, but everything that we go through is something that we could handle or endure, or else God wouldn't have allowed it in our lives to start with. People are put into situations that really test their faith and strength in themselves and God. A big reason I believe that people are so afraid to grow up, is that as we grow up, we are given many more responsibilities and basically in charge of our own lives in whether we will succeed or fail in life. That is a scary thought, but is there really anything in life that we can achieve without taking the initiative first to begin it? Only when we take that risk of either succeeding or failing in a certain thing in our life, will we be able to truly be satisfied with ourselves at the end no matter what the result may be. You don't want to go your whole life wondering "what if" so I say that whatever you want in life, go for it. There is a quote I came across that says: “The hardest part about growing up is letting go with what you have been accustomed to and moving on with something that you haven't experienced yet.” Many people are so comfortable with the lifestyle that they live in high school, that once they reach college it's hard at times to "grow up". I know many people in my life that are like this, but it's only once we finally realize that the kind of lifestyle we were so consumed in, is really a lifestyle that if we were to continue it throughout our lives will only bring us hardships and failure. Obviously I'm talking about the whole party scene, and just chasing after the opposite sex, trying to meet as many people possible so you are well known, etc. When I thought back on how I acted during high school, I noticed how big of a difference my life is now. Talking with my friend, we were reminiscing about the days when we were in high school, and even though it seemed like only a few years ago, to us it felt like a lifetime ago. There was a sense of nostalgia in our conversation, but I feel we both realized how pointless it all was. How pointless it was trying to be so popular when now we really don't talk to more than half of the people we met during high school, and so on. This is the true meaning of growing up for people our age. When you finally realize that you are not the same person you were when you were out doing stuff that you thought was cool and in at the time. When you finally realize that you have matured through your experiences in your past, and you actually use it to learn from your mistakes instead of someone who hasn't grown up yet and still lingers on their mistakes and lives in it. Don't get me wrong, nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes, but it's the people that are matured and grown up in life that take their mistakes and try their best to learn from it, instead of just not caring and living on and making the same mistake over and over. But growing up is something that takes time. You can't "grow up" over night and expect to be a different person the next day. So I'll leave you guys with this quote : "Growing up is a process, not an event." Thanks for reading.
-Paul Lem.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Time.
"Time does not change us, it just unfolds us."
-Max Frisch
The expression "time flies.." really is a true statement in itself. I believe everyone can agree that as we get older and age, everything in life seems to fly by. When we were young, we would always say, "I hate being so young, I can't wait until I'm older. Once I'm older, I'm going to do so many things in life and I can do whatever I want." But the true reality is, as we age and grow older, we always have feelings of nostalgia and miss our childhood when we never had half the worries we do as an adult. As you grow older, there are more responsibilities that you obtain. For example, in college, you aren't forced to wake up everyday to go to class as you were in high school by your parents, but now you are given the choice whether or not to go. As you grow older, you need to start thinking about getting a job and what you want to do in the future. As you grow older, you start worrying about how you will make it on your own and start having your own bills to pay. I believe that is a big reason why when we were young, we couldn't wait to become older because we knew once we are older, we will be able to make our own choices but we didn't know the responsibilities and stress that comes with that choice. The dictionary definition of choice is: the right, power, or opportunity to choose. As we get older, we are confronted with many decisions that will affect our lives and it all depends on the choice that we make in each situation. Throughout time, everything changes except for God. That's the funny thing about time. Time affects us in ways that we sometimes don't even realize. Throughout time, all of us will usually mature our mind in the way we think and perceive everything. Throughout time, people change. You lose friends that you were close with before, but end up making new friends also. Now everyone knows the reason for this, it's because people change mind, body, and soul throughout time. The new you might not have anything in common with the friends you used to have, so eventually throughout time you become more distant and find people that you have things in common and enjoy being with. But with all this, the true reason for why time changes everyone is because we make the decision to change ourselves throughout that time. What I'm trying to say is, that as we grow older in life, we start to become more busy and don't take the time to appreciate something as valuable as time. Time is one of those things that you can learn a lot from. A quote that goes perfect with this is, "Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back." There's another quote that talks about how "you can always get more money, but you can never get more time." The quote that I gave at the beginning, about how time does not change but really just unfolds us is what I want to focus on. As time passes, we go through experiences in our lives that change our way of thinking. As time passes, we make decisions in certain situations that are our choices at the time, that mold us into the person we are today. As we age, people take time for granted and that's the point I'm trying to get across with this blog. We forget to appreciate the time God has given us to live on this earth, because we get so consumed by all the worldly worries. For me personally, there are so many things that I want to do and experience in my life. For example, I want to travel to many places, take singing/dancing/acting classes so I can go to Korea and chase after my dream of making it big, and also I want to get married and have children of my own that I can care for and love. When I think too much about it, I worry that I won't have enough time to do all the stuff I want, but what I realized is that the time I spent worrying about my future was time that I can never get back and wasted. Not worrying about your future is something that is very hard to do, but I feel God is telling me that as long as I do my best in everything I do, He will take care of the rest. So I'm going to leave you guys with a quote and a song, just ponder on the quote and listen to the lyrics of the song on youtube. Thanks for reading.
Quote: "Time is equal to life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life."
-Alan Lakein
Song: Damien Fernandez - Forever.
-Paul Lem.
-Max Frisch
The expression "time flies.." really is a true statement in itself. I believe everyone can agree that as we get older and age, everything in life seems to fly by. When we were young, we would always say, "I hate being so young, I can't wait until I'm older. Once I'm older, I'm going to do so many things in life and I can do whatever I want." But the true reality is, as we age and grow older, we always have feelings of nostalgia and miss our childhood when we never had half the worries we do as an adult. As you grow older, there are more responsibilities that you obtain. For example, in college, you aren't forced to wake up everyday to go to class as you were in high school by your parents, but now you are given the choice whether or not to go. As you grow older, you need to start thinking about getting a job and what you want to do in the future. As you grow older, you start worrying about how you will make it on your own and start having your own bills to pay. I believe that is a big reason why when we were young, we couldn't wait to become older because we knew once we are older, we will be able to make our own choices but we didn't know the responsibilities and stress that comes with that choice. The dictionary definition of choice is: the right, power, or opportunity to choose. As we get older, we are confronted with many decisions that will affect our lives and it all depends on the choice that we make in each situation. Throughout time, everything changes except for God. That's the funny thing about time. Time affects us in ways that we sometimes don't even realize. Throughout time, all of us will usually mature our mind in the way we think and perceive everything. Throughout time, people change. You lose friends that you were close with before, but end up making new friends also. Now everyone knows the reason for this, it's because people change mind, body, and soul throughout time. The new you might not have anything in common with the friends you used to have, so eventually throughout time you become more distant and find people that you have things in common and enjoy being with. But with all this, the true reason for why time changes everyone is because we make the decision to change ourselves throughout that time. What I'm trying to say is, that as we grow older in life, we start to become more busy and don't take the time to appreciate something as valuable as time. Time is one of those things that you can learn a lot from. A quote that goes perfect with this is, "Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back." There's another quote that talks about how "you can always get more money, but you can never get more time." The quote that I gave at the beginning, about how time does not change but really just unfolds us is what I want to focus on. As time passes, we go through experiences in our lives that change our way of thinking. As time passes, we make decisions in certain situations that are our choices at the time, that mold us into the person we are today. As we age, people take time for granted and that's the point I'm trying to get across with this blog. We forget to appreciate the time God has given us to live on this earth, because we get so consumed by all the worldly worries. For me personally, there are so many things that I want to do and experience in my life. For example, I want to travel to many places, take singing/dancing/acting classes so I can go to Korea and chase after my dream of making it big, and also I want to get married and have children of my own that I can care for and love. When I think too much about it, I worry that I won't have enough time to do all the stuff I want, but what I realized is that the time I spent worrying about my future was time that I can never get back and wasted. Not worrying about your future is something that is very hard to do, but I feel God is telling me that as long as I do my best in everything I do, He will take care of the rest. So I'm going to leave you guys with a quote and a song, just ponder on the quote and listen to the lyrics of the song on youtube. Thanks for reading.
Quote: "Time is equal to life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life."
-Alan Lakein
Song: Damien Fernandez - Forever.
-Paul Lem.
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