Adulting: Appreciation on a Larger Scale...

When I was school age, I often heard my teachers say something akin to:

You are the next generation: you are the next set of teachers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, electricians, and parents (or whatever other careers they happened to think of.)

They made me feel like we were little eggs, warming up, just waiting to crack. The future sounded so far off and dreamy.

Jump in time, twenty-plus years later. My generation is no longer bragging about getting a job at Kroger’s grocery store and waving to each other from our parents’ cars. We are now seeing patients, advising clients, heading businesses, and running classrooms and schools. And so much more. In my late-thirties, I find it safe to declare we’ve reached the seemingly mythical time our teachers were preparing us for.

Unlike my teen years, I don’t just call my friends for advice on homework or hair products. I have friends that can write me a prescription, help me design a website, or give me legal advice. I know it’s only logical (I’m channeling the great Spock), because this is the direction we were always headed; it shouldn’t shock me, but it does. I think because I tend to go through life a little too focused on the future.

So instead, I’m taking the time to consciously look around me and acknowledge where I presently am in life. Only to be more all-encompassing, I’m acknowledging where my age group is in life. Each year allowed my generation opportunities to develop our talents and/or better ourselves. We messed up majorly, of course, but we’ve also seen each other step into roles our society needs. And I’m proud of us.

Once again (I may be sounding like a broken record), I’m striving to live intentionally: to look at my past and appreciate how it has morphed into my present.

I’m following the experts' advice to slow down and take notice. I just want to do it on a grander scale: sure, I can mindfully feel the chair I’m sitting in, but I want to widen my scope and also mindfully look around with others and enjoy the thrill of what WE have accomplished. And because that thrill is available to me (to really anybody), I’d be foolish not to reach out and take it. Want to join me?