Growing Up.

"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.