Wednesday, January 26, 2011
I was lied to....
Remember when you were young and you were told you could grow up to do anything you want? I definitely do. "Well what do you want to grow up to be?", they would ask us. "I want to be an astronaut!", I would say "Great, if you work real hard you can be on the moon one day!" What a load of shit. If kindergarten teachers had a dime for every snot nose kid that wants to fly to the moon they would have....well about 5 dimes I would assume. But this demonstrates the general idea that we fill our kids with all of this fluff that just causes disappointment when they finally grow up. Maybe we should just start being honest with our kids. "Well Billy, I know you want to be a doctor, but if you can't put the square block in the square hole at this age, why don't you try driving this toy garbage truck, see how that feels." You know what everyone said I should be when I grow up? A fuckin comedian. As it turns out the only comedic talent I have is to make short phrase comments on everyday situations that generally makes people dislike me. I guess it worked for Seinfeld. The bottom line is I never flew to the moon, or even hallucinated enough to pretend I was there. It is time to be honest with our kids and give them a stiff dose of reality at a young age....because the world needs ditch diggers too.
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Bradley, I did not realize it was possible to put a personality like yours on paper... I can picture you saying everything you wrote and it already has me in stitches. Hell yeah Brad, hell yeah:)
ReplyDeleteWell... I sort of have to, [respectfully, of course] disagree with the overall sentiment of this post.
ReplyDeleteLet me start off by saying, there are points I most certainly agree with. Like the necessity for American parents [and everyone else] to be realistic with their children and themselves, American exceptionalism is at the root of this megalomania type behavior. It's not necessarily a bad thing to think you are capable of anything, but we take that to another level by thinking our way is the only way.. and that we can't learn anything from anyone else. And the child who clearly doesn't possess the cognitive ability, to use your example, "put the square block in a square hole," should be steered in a direction that will be more suited to make them feel successful.
But, the astronaut discussion, and the belief that there was some sort of external force blocking you from becoming an astronaut, or a comedian, is, in my opinion, a cop out.
You see, the job you are working now, is a respectable profession... but you are working for that company [and not flying to the moon] because you chose to go to business school at Penn State. Your efforts during your four years at Penn State set you up as a potential employee for a company like the one you currently work for. Had you decided not to go to college and study improv, acting, comedy, art, etc... who knows if you wouldn't be doing stand up comedy at a bar in Los Angeles [and making way less money, I know]. The same theory could be applied to becoming an astronaut. Would it have been more difficult.. probably. But there's no reason for someone of your upbringing and intellectual capacity, it would be impossible.
Now I'll digress, and concede that we should be realistic with our children, but we shouldn't discourage dreams either. There's over 50 professions I think I could succeed in, but I'm pursuing one right now, that fulfills my creativity and challenges me every day. Whether or not I succeed will be partly up to me, and the rest is out of my control, but like everything else, you'll never know unless you try.