I'm not sure I understand. How do you know if someone appearing to have a young lifestyle is natural or not? Is it based on how someone looks? One thing that I often think is a problem with our society is that we are youth biased and there is a value judgement placed upon aging. So people seek to find ways to stay young. While it sucks to lose one's athleticism, vigor and figure I've been starting to think that there is something to getting old.
I think its important to define what being "grown up" is for ones self. I don't automatically assume that if someone is married and/or has children they are more "grown-up". I do believe you have to show a lot of maturity to be a GOOD spouse or parent. But lots of the biggest knuckleheads I know are married and breeding...and they are still knuckleheads. Don't get me wrong, living from party to party is probably a sign you let your inner Peter Pan out a little too much. But if you have real priorities and goals, and you are working toward them. They don't have to be the same as everyone else's goals, and they don't necessarily have to involve walking down an aisle and playing Candyland with 3 year olds. That said there is probably no more noble calling than being a good parent, and I am sure the rewards are immense. I just object slightly to the idea that you have to do X and Y to be a "real man or woman". People are different and your mileage may vary.
Growing up isn't a single act - it's a process. Growing up is an evolution - it develops out of a string of events and circumstances that individually may or may not have absolutely no effect on your maturity levels. Some people have a longer process to go through to become a "grown up", or never actually get there; while others do it in a short period of time, or through extenuating circumstances. Major said it best - People are different and your mileage may vary.
This thread caused me to think of: So I call up my preacher I say, "Give me strength for Round 5." He said , "You don't need no strength, you need to grow up son." I said, "Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying "And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun." :|| CHORUS Oh no oh no I fight authority Authority always wins :|| CHORUS leggo speaking of circumstances and growing up. I recently had to travel on buisness and even though I was away for only a few days in that short time I realized that some of the immature bad habbits I have disappeared once I was on the road I was very focused on work and I saw myself and my flaws without the comforts of home masking my flaws.
Excellent point and I shouldn't have simplified my definition of growing up to getting married and having a family. I like how you put it as working towards your goals. I think though that your goals change as depending on where you are in life. At the sametime I think when you are younger you don't always know what you want out of life and perhaps growing up is when you are clear about what you want and work towards it wholeheartedly.
There isn't a scientific way to tell if someone is natural in having their young life style or not, but I think it's possible to tell. When people try and do something and our overly self aware of how their actions will come off it is possible to tell. Not everyone will tell but I think a lot of folks can. If people act young because they truly enjoy the same things younger people enjoy, then fine, but if they act young, because they want to appear young to others, and it requires effort on their part to make sure they are doing the "young" thing, it isn't natural. It is similar to people who are weird and people who try to be weird. They might both wear the same "crazy" outfit, but one is doing it because they like it and it just happens to be weird. The other one is doing it because they think it is weird and they want everyone to see how whacky they are. Also I think being an old man would be great in many ways. It gives you a freedom, and hopefully wisdom, plus you could have a lot of fun shocking folks.
