Life's a Garden, Dig It. Smell Those Roses.

When I was in elementary school and early high school, I thought I’d be close with my little carefree group of friends forever. I thought we’d stay close all through school, way into our adult years and beyond because the chemistry we shared when we were responsibility free pre-teens was just too natural. I thought everyone at my entire elementary school, or everyone I had on MSN Messenger would be a part of my life to some degree for decades to come. Life was carefree. Laughter, love, and angst just flowed naturally through our prepubescent bodies to the point that it became an extremely familiar chaos. Money wasn’t an issue, and the kids who got $20 a week allowance were living large, free to make it rain, so to speak.

But as we grew up, I was proven wrong. I speak to a small handful of people I knew ‘back in the day’ and the duties of adult life have drifted all of us further and further apart from our acquaintances. Some have travelled the world, focused on careers, got married, started families, and some have done a whole lot of nothing. Either or, doesn't matter, if you make it competition, you're bound to feel like a loser. If you treat life with a sense of winners and losers, sooner or later you realize that nobody comes out alive, so  really there are no winners.

Let me be clear, growing up and being an adult is not a bad thing, its a great thing – but life happens at a rapid speed, so maybe we should remember to take more time to smell the roses along the journey.

Today, Facebook and all the other platforms that people parade their personal lives on don’t leave much to the imagination as to what people are doing with their lives. You can, for the most part get a feel for the type of person those kids you knew have become.

• The kid who peed his pants in the 4th grade is an oil worker and has a baby, Neat!
• The girl who loved doing homework in grade 7 is a teacher, and getting married, wow!

• The guy who wore everything Randy River has lost all his hair already, maybe the flames on his shirt burnt it off!
• The guy who always smelled like mold is a bread maker, and has two moldy little sons, talk about foreshadowing!

But when was the last time you spoke with any of those people? Sure, maybe you’ve ran into them at the market or a bar had a little bit of small talk like you don’t already know what they’re doing with themselves. But when was the last time you got to have a care free, no agenda chat with someone from the past that you’ve drifted away from as you’ve molded your life? I recently had to a chance to do it,  and it was great.  I'm very glad I did, and here's why: Not only did I get to reconnect with someone that I had actually forgotten I genuinely cared about, but I got to reconnect with the person I was when I did.

I'm not talking about people you’ve sort of kept in touch with, I'm talking about people you haven’t spoken with in years. I'm talking the person where you can say, “I haven’t seen ______ in forever”. What I suggest is ask that person out for a drink. Sit down with a person, guy or girl doesn’t matter, and just shoot the shit. I can almost promise that you’ll just magically pick up where you left off.

You’ll be reminded of the person you were before the weight of life and the trivial pursuit known as adulthood got in the way. They may remember personality traits about you that you had forgotten about yourself. Traits clearly dynamic enough to leave an impression after all these years.

Without even realizing it you’ll be doing the same for them. Once the initial small-talk is out of the way, you’ll find time has metaphorically rewound your mindset to pick up right where you’ve left off.

In a time where people are ‘cleaning out their Facebook’, I challenge you to do the opposite. Hang out with someone you’ve lost contact with from your childhood.

They knew you when life was easy – perhaps with your fast paced life, you’ve forgotten that person the kid in you once was.

You’ll be able to look back and smile as to how far you’ve come, be able to use that reignited sense of yourself to drive even deeper into your dreams that you’re currently trying to make come true.

Forgetting the child in all of us is a deadly plague that adulthood can bring. It’s the gateway to stress, uncertainty and self-doubt.

We all could use this, so get a hold of someone you haven’t really seen in 10 years or so – see if they’re free for banter and bullshit one night, let me know how it goes. My guess is awesome.

Thanks for reading,  now go out there and make new(old) friends!

#SmellTheRoses

-Jegger

 

"When we appreciate things from our past, we're latently arguing that those things are still important -- and if those things are important, we can pretend our own life is equally important, because those are the things that comprise our past." - Chuck Klosterman