Very Well Then, No Cookies for You

It's always thrilling to do something you know you're not supposed to do. Whether it's when you're a kid and sneak a cookie before dinner or when you're a teenager and sneak out of your parent's house to go meet your friends, the act of rebellion, no matter how small makes you feel exhilarated. Even when you get caught, it is usually worth it. It's worth the cookie. It's worth being grounded. But, have you noticed that slowly these rebellious acts seem to fade away until we become the dreaded adult? It just kind of sneaks up on you until one day you realize that that job you have, it's real. Those bills that come in the mail, they're real too and even if you want to rebel against them, you can't. It's this blindsided push into adulthood that has confirmed my belief that I'm not the working kind. I may not even be the adult kind.

I believe working a 9 to 5 job has paralyzed whatever creative thoughts I had left in my brain, it makes me look forward to noon as I know that lunch will be my only excitement of the day. I find myself at work laughing at people who yell at me for their inadequacies which only makes them madder and I think, how long am I going to be able get away with doing absolutely nothing and having no one notice? I informed my mom halfway through college that I simply wasn't the working kind and she said that no one was, no one liked to work. I beg to differ. Did you know there are people who like mornings? As in, they are morning people. As in they wake up before their alarms and face each day thinking, how much can I accomplish today? This only happens to me three times a year: the day after my birthday, January 2nd, and a random day in autumn when everything just feels inspiring. These three days trick me into thinking that I can be a person of accomplishment.

I think my lack of motivation is due to my ambivalent view on how I think a person should live their life. I know that after a certain age you're supposed to look past the ideal of living in the moment and actually take responsibility, start a 401K, and get health insurance but I started thinking, what left is there to work towards besides just enjoying life? I went to college just like I was supposed to, I got a job and now I look back and think that milestone of graduation was so anticlimactic that now I just feel gypped. The next milestone is supposed to be a promotion in your career, but what if you are never going to be the type to have a career and getting a promotion means switching jobs? I hear you saying, the next milestone is getting married and having a family. What if I never get married and never have a family? Sometimes these milestones happen out of order or don't happen at all. Sometimes the excitement of not knowing is in truth more exciting than knowing. It has the element of surprise, the hope that the future will show you that life isn't a sequential timeline that requires certain stops along the way and detours won't prevent you from still cruising along just fine.

I admire those who have come into the responsibilities of adulthood a little easier than I have, but even if you are one of those people, you have to admit that all those exciting things that you did that maybe you weren't supposed to, the things that you worried might take you off the path for a minute, they are so much better than anything you could ever have planned. Planning for the future is worth it and I'm sure I'll do it one of these days but until then, all those other times; they're so worth the cookie.