I have a lot of theories.
They range from mildly implausible to deeply offensive and are rarely founded on more than the vaguest of anecdotal evidence. They mostly relate to me only, rendering them harmless to the majority of humanity. But I have a couple that are more general, which will eventually go towards constituting my Code To Live By (coming to a bookstore near you in Fall 2015!).
The one I’ve been thinking about today is a way to measure your success in life thus far. It goes like this:
If you traveled back in time and explained your daily life to a 7-year-old version of yourself, they would look forward to growing up and being you.
The reasoning behind this theory is that it reminds me to examine life through the lens of, “Am I having enough fun? Do I take things too seriously, or do I make enough time to do silly stuff once in a while? Have I lost sight of things that were once important to me?”
Of course, a number of flaws are immediately apparent. If you are a loud-mouthed firefighter with a hook for a hand who eats pizza every night and has only a pack of undomesticated wolves for company, you have made a roaring success of life according to this theory (and perhaps, others too). However, if you are a mild-mannered wine aficionado with a highly-technical policy related job, who enjoys cooking vegetable side dishes on the weekends, you will likely be branded a failure. How much you enjoy these things now are fairly irrelevant. In order to be successful, most of your daily activities must be things you thought were awesome when you were seven.
A lot of things I hated as a child – having a long shower, going to bed, and finishing all my dinner – are now things I love dearly. So, there’s always going to be a certain amount in my life that child-me would screw their nose up at. “You eat spinach? Ewww! YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND ?? Gross!!!”
But I can think of some aspects of my current life that would appeal to child-me. “Hey, child-me!” I would say, “Get this. I live in a house with my friends, I can go to bed whenever I like and I don’t have to ask anyone if I want to sleepover at someone else’s house. I can drink cocktails and eat ice-cream for dinner every night if I want to. I make my own money and get to decide what to do with it. And no-one tells me to go change when I pick out my outfit in the morning.”
Child-me would, however, be pretty pissed off that I’m not a ballerina, a famous actor, a famous writer, or a combination of both. Frankly, I’m pretty pissed off that I’m not any of these things (and at my advanced age, it is unlikely that the first two will ever come to fruition, but I’m still holding out for the third). She would be glad that I finished university, never started smoking (I was always a nerd) and that I’ve travelled and lived in other countries. She’d probably be impressed with my modelling work, like the fact I’ve become a good cook and that I’ve tried to keep up with dance classes. Thinking about what child-me would like to do is one way that I try to keep a recent and ever-growing fear at bay – that I will grow up to be utterly boring.
So, whenever I make a resolution to open a high-interest savings account, rollover my superannuation into one fund, or something else equally sensible and completely dull, I try to think of something more interesting to do too. Like getting really good at hula-hoop or learning another language. Or making time for craft projects, video games or even just colouring-in (I never got rid of my crayons).
How harshly do you think seven-year-old you would judge your life today? Does it matter? Are you more concerned with what eighty-year old you would think?
How do you measure your success?
