From the day humans are born they wait for their lives to progress. Impatiently waiting for the future to come and wishing to be in a different phase of life than they are currently in. As a population humans take for granted the phase of life they are in, including how special it is to be young and naive. As a child the mind cannot comprehend the feeling of stress, the overwhelming anxiety of overthinking, and the overall truths of life. Children wish to be grown and adults wish to be young, a parallel of life that incircles the realizations of the life humans live.
As children the human body gravitates towards the desire to grow up. Throughout a kid’s childhood the imagination allows them to think about those exciting moments that come with adulthood. The thought of high school, college, moving away from home, and so many more aspects of growing up lead the minds of the young to think being an adult is significantly better than being a kid, but this is far from the truth.
A famous 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.”
Life is a hard concept to understand as a child and typically going through the minds of the kids is the perfect scenario of growing up. The impatience leading to taking things for granted that later in life will be missed. It’s human nature to think as life goes on that so many advantages present themselves, but when one takes the minute to look back on the past most often, regret sinks in. Regret that moments taken for granted were some of the best times of life.
EHS Senior Austyn Trujillo said, “When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to grow up. I dreamed about graduating, moving on with my life, and becoming a doctor. I rushed through the little moments, always focused on the future and who I was going to be. But now that graduation is so close, I realize how fast it all went, and I’d do anything to go back to the days when life felt simple. When my biggest goal was just to play outside before the sun went down. Growing up used to feel like the finish line, but now I see that being a kid was the part I should’ve held onto a little longer.”
As people grow up and they reach certain points in their life they realize how fast time really goes. As a society, we are always waiting for the next big step, the next phase of life to begin. We spend so much time waiting for what’s next that we never take the time to be where we are. As children, the world is simple. It looks like they have no problems or concerns. But it’s not that children have no problems; it’s that their minds work differently. They haven’t yet been weighed down by the stress, anxiety, and overthinking that comes with being an adult and even a teenager. The simplicity of childhood isn’t the lack of reality, it’s the lack of mental strain that comes from gaining knowledge. Children always look at the older people in their lives and find thrill in imagining when it will be their turn. Using their imagination to look into the future they are so excited to live. But when that child gets to a point in life they dreamed of for so many years, regret sinks in.
EHS senior Aya Kinoshita said, “While being in high school and having the opportunity to leave I wish that life was just simple like when I was a kid and was able to just play in my backyard all the time and stay home and live through my imagination.”
It’s crazy to think that life continues to go on. Generations after generations have been through the stages of children to teenagers to adults and eventually the time will come where the stages of life come to an end. Life is so easy to take for granted and in so many cases leaves many with regret. Life is something that is hard to understand and just when people think they have it figured out, it throws something new at us. When people go about their daily lives as a society we have to enjoy the stage of life we are in. Each stage of life will be up before we know it and we need to stop dwelling on wanting to enter a new phase. This life we have is so precious so as humans we need to find ways to live a life our inner child would approve of. As we grow insecurities develop, stress consumes our lives, overthinking controls us, and the fears of tomorrow take that carefree smile we once had away from us. So when we wake up and we feel like we are drowning from the realities of life, close your eyes and go back to where the simplicity of life took all those worries away.
