25 And Looking Back

I know, I know. You’re supposed to look forward. But, I like to look back often. In my opinion of myself – oh geez, can you believe I have an opinion of myself? Terrible – I’ve found that a lot of the thoughts that I previously had about myself – things around me – have definitely grown.

Noticed I didn’t use the word “matured”. To this day I get called “immature”, even by those that barely know me.

And I can’t pinpoint certain dates in my life where my thoughts changed per say, however I can definitely tell you the difference between what I used to think and how I used to act and how I now act. I’m now 25. It’s an odd feeling. It’s an odd number at the least. One quarter of a century – and how old do kids 5 years younger than me think I am? Freaking old. Heck, I think people who are 26 are really old, when in fact, I’ve got less than 12 months before I’m there. I’m sure this mentality will change with time too.

I’d like to make the main point I was getting at first – because I think it’s a complex one, and it’s going to be really challenging for me to describe on paper. Right now it’s this amorphous substance in my brain that pops up with little “you should include this, and talk about that too!” snippets – but it’s not ever a full-on post. Which is of course why I have to throw it all on here, to see if it hopefully makes sense at the end.

When I was 14, 16, 18 I thought of my world as me. What am I doing today? How do I feel today? What do I want to do? If it didn’t fit in to my agenda, or my thought process, it didn’t fit. I fought with it, I ignored it, I didn’t recognize it. I had one train of thought and if anyone else thought differently they were wrong.

This played itself out in my actions. Christmas was about the presents I received. How much money I got on my birthday (seriously, I’m going to stop the italics now I think everyone gets the point). How well I did in comparison to previous years as far as the amount of booty *cough* that I had accrued. If someone wasn’t useful to me, I never found any further need for them. For all I took, I rarely gave back. If I was giving back, it was because my parents forced me to, and not because I ever wanted to.

I drove 124 miles per hour down 405 with 3 people in my car with me the summer after I first got the car. It was me showing off my new car to the people in the car, one which was screaming bloody murder if I didn’t slow down. A few cared. A few thought the car was cool regardless of how reckless I drove it. I didn’t think twice about their lives, or mine for that matter, or the others on the road. It was me, showboating, trying to be as cool as I could, for myself. This event for some reason, stands out in my head when I begin to talk about the difference between me 7 years ago, and me now.

I now drive 70 in the middle lane on the freeway. Rarely does my speed top 85, and I only go that speed when I’m passing someone or everyone else is going that fast. I’m concerned with how those riding in my car feel. I’m concerned with other drivers out there. I have to shake my head and think of how idiotic I was every time I see a lowered civic with a coffee can exhaust fly by me at 100 miles per hour. Lucky for me, I got to this point where I am now – many teens in my situation have not made it - I’ve grown a bit now, and I can see the difference.

Today I think about my affect on the entire world. I’m even getting to a point where I try to reduce my entire impact on the world’s environment – maybe this will be saved for a later post. 7 years ago, I thought about my affect on the people around me – literally within the distance to touch them. I never cared what kind of money I was wasting, energies or resources, literally at one point sitting in a college class at 18 I raised my hand and said, “You get this one life. What you do in it is all you get, so you might as well live it up (party and waste as many resources) as you possibly can”. Obviously today I am not living that lifestyle (although it does sound fun sometimes).

I used to be selfish for myself. Now I am selfish for my loved ones. That’s a lot better in my opinion than how I used to be. Now I want what is best for my family. Before I used to always say, “Take care of #1 first”. And that was how I lived. I got my way, and at the drop of a hat could forget everyone else. Sometimes this side of me will come snarling out all over again, but the “Take care of your family first” side is creeping in and starting to dominate my old thoughts.

I’m trying my best to take care of my parents. I’m concerned for them, growing in to an older age. I’ve always lived to make them proud, and it’s like we’ve reached this point where they can look at me and say, “See, we didn’t do too bad of a job with him”. I live now to make sure that my loved ones know that I love them very much. I try to live everyday as a respectful citizens in the eyes of everyone else. I keep in much better contact with my parents and start to see the older generation as more of my peers instead of the “people who were trying to keep me down”. The other day I thought to myself that I have more in common with a guy who is on the verge of retirement at 60 years old than I do with other 25 year olds. My fear is that maybe I’m growing too fast now?

They are fascinating to me though. They’ve seen so much – even people who are 15 years older than I am still have a wealth of knowledge about the past. I think about my grandparent’s generation – those who have seen 60 years more of life before me – what a difference their lifetimes have made.

The Christmas presents and birthday presents have almost dropped to nothing now. But this isn’t a complaint. It’s almost as if I was ready to move past that stage – like now it’s my time to give back to the community that raised me. Instead of being the receiver, I plan on delighting in years of gifting. I think in order to leave this world a better place I need to extend some sort of lasting legacy – even if it be with a few people. And the more generous I am with my efforts, energy, time and money I think the larger that wake becomes – the more people I affect in positive ways.

I think I was right when I started this post – it was way too jumbled and confusing for me to make any sort of sense of it. I think I’ll try again when I’m 30.