I have two theses (albeit underworked) that I have made about life as a youth vs. life as a young adult (or just adult):
1. The dream of what you're going to do when you grow up is a strangely limited dream once you grow up and do what you always wanted to do.
This one came do me in the past few days when I decided to ask my students, most of which are freshman and sophomores, what they want to do when they grow up.
It was not their answers that surprised me, it was mine.
I carefully thought about it, prior to class, and realized that I am what I dreamed of becoming as a child. I'm a math teacher. Now, I'm not the nuanced version of what I hoped to be when I was a college student - all of 15 months ago. But, I am what I dreamed for several years of K-12 schooling. Strange.
My point is that I had to sort of come up with another dream. And this is what I shared with my students.
"When I grow up more, I would like to be a father." That is what I told them. And it was not much of a realization as it is a question raiser: What will I want to do "when I grow up" once I am a father? Strange.
My most desirable question is: Where does the question, 'What do you want to do when you grow up', tend to go? Once your grown up, once your really grown up, and so on.... then what should you want to do when you grow up?
Either way, to me, it poses a strange, but likely inconsequential, dilemma when we ask youth what they want to be when they grow up. What are they supposed to do after that?
I'll touch on my answer to this later in this post.
2. The answer to the question of what will make your life 'better' or 'complete' may also pose a dilemma when you are grown up (if that answer is marriage, money, education, job title, freedom from the parents, etc...)
Here's an example from my life.
When I was in K-12 there were some pretty tough things going on in my life for a very long time (hence the K-12). family struggles, loneliness, disconnect.
And I remember asking: what could possibly make all of this worth it? What could possibly make all of this better – less painful? At that time I came up with a type of hope – that one day I would get married to a girl who for whatever reason would bring no bearing of misfortune or hurt. This, of course, was illogical and unhelpful to the situation at hand, but it helped me carry on.
1. The dream of what you're going to do when you grow up is a strangely limited dream once you grow up and do what you always wanted to do.
This one came do me in the past few days when I decided to ask my students, most of which are freshman and sophomores, what they want to do when they grow up.
It was not their answers that surprised me, it was mine.
I carefully thought about it, prior to class, and realized that I am what I dreamed of becoming as a child. I'm a math teacher. Now, I'm not the nuanced version of what I hoped to be when I was a college student - all of 15 months ago. But, I am what I dreamed for several years of K-12 schooling. Strange.
My point is that I had to sort of come up with another dream. And this is what I shared with my students.
"When I grow up more, I would like to be a father." That is what I told them. And it was not much of a realization as it is a question raiser: What will I want to do "when I grow up" once I am a father? Strange.
My most desirable question is: Where does the question, 'What do you want to do when you grow up', tend to go? Once your grown up, once your really grown up, and so on.... then what should you want to do when you grow up?
Either way, to me, it poses a strange, but likely inconsequential, dilemma when we ask youth what they want to be when they grow up. What are they supposed to do after that?
I'll touch on my answer to this later in this post.
2. The answer to the question of what will make your life 'better' or 'complete' may also pose a dilemma when you are grown up (if that answer is marriage, money, education, job title, freedom from the parents, etc...)
Here's an example from my life.
When I was in K-12 there were some pretty tough things going on in my life for a very long time (hence the K-12). family struggles, loneliness, disconnect.
And I remember asking: what could possibly make all of this worth it? What could possibly make all of this better – less painful? At that time I came up with a type of hope – that one day I would get married to a girl who for whatever reason would bring no bearing of misfortune or hurt. This, of course, was illogical and unhelpful to the situation at hand, but it helped me carry on.
Because hope
does that. Hope in a restoration, a newness, a better reality where things are
as we always imagined they should be helps us carry on.
Well… I recently found out that I’m getting married – sometime soon. At this point in life, I fully expect that this wonderful woman who is clearly too good for me will sometimes receive misfortune and hurt from me – and vice versa.
If I were a complete fool, I’d still need to realize that I require a better, fuller hope otherwise I’d quickly become hopeless, because marriage is not the answer to the 'completion' problem. Although I do believe it will be a wonderful taste of what is in store with our future hope.
So, here is another dilemma. You grow up with a question: what will make my life 'better' or 'complete'? And your often your answer is achieved... and then what do you do? It's like the 'dream' scenario... there is nothing left to live for and that can deeply coincide with the let-down in the realization that our 'dream' and what will 'complete' us is not fulfilling enough.
Well, here is my take on those mini-dilemmas, and it consists of the beauty of the Christian life.
Jesus gets us. He gets us because He knows that we're always working for something. We will realize a dream and then we'll need another. We will reach what we thought was 'completion' and then need something else for completion.
Jesus 'hires' us for eternal work...which at first sounds disastrous. But if you think about it, you're always working for something, and then when you reach it it's uninspiring (maybe not at first, but eventually). Fortunately, Jesus gives us a work that is purposeful, filling, completing and it does not succumb to either of the dilemmas I've listed above.
To dream to be a useful and called relationship builder with Jesus as the focus or to find a 'better' or 'complete' life in oneness with Jesus has not been topped. It's a process that takes a lifetime of work. It's not a 4 year degree right after a K-12 schooling. To me, that's pretty cool. To me, I could do that for 40, 60, or 80 years much more willingly than my once-upon-a-time dream of teaching or dream of being a father (most likely).
And to me it will be the source of more completion than marriage. In fact, with this life time of work, it will add purpose and direction to my marriage. It will make marriage more whole and more complete. But it's all because of Jesus, not because of marriage.
I like how the source is so much better than the gift.
I suppose that is my conclusion on these two dilemmas: Our connection to the Source of 'dreams' and 'completion' is so much better than the gift (of a realized 'dream or a situation' that makes your life 'complete')
