As you grow older, your legs get longer, your hands get bigger, your mind grows wiser. Your eyes open wider, your family grows older, your awareness grows stronger. However, throughout this process we not only gain some, but we lose some as well. Our short legs get longer, our small hands get bigger, our young mind grows wiser. Our innocent eyes open wider, our family grows older, and our awareness grows stronger. The passing of time is inevitable, but whether we use it to adapt or change is our choice.

When we are young, our wants are extremely powerful and our happiness is most important to us. We know what we want and are extremely selective of it too. We cry when we don’t get exactly what we asked for. This concept passed through my mind a few weeks ago and it got me thinking: why do we learn to settle as we grow?

This leads me to the difference between settling and accepting. As a child, we know that our happiness is the most important thing in our lives, but as we grow older we assimilate to societal means and our perception of what’s important changes; it settles into something that doesn’t necessarily come from ourselves. However, when we accept something, we are happy with the alternative option and that is OK. With this, I’ve decided that I will go back to my older mindset, be nothing less than happy and do nothing less than accept, if it makes me equally as happy; I’ve chosen to accept but never settle. Within relationships, career goals, making choices, life, we need to learn to step up to the plate and stand up for ourselves: choose what will make you happy.

Never let go of your curiosity, your zest, your silliness and passion for exploring. Stay funky, unpredictable and appreciative. Growing up, one of the worst things we can do for our minds is become more straight-minded and systematic. Yes, there are reasons people change in these senses, but we have to realize that we lose ourselves when we let events that should help us develop, becomes handicaps to our individual personas rather than growing experiences. We can’t allow natural changes and motions of life to scar us; we must use them to grow and to enhance ourselves and our lifestyles.

This entry may have seemed like a ramble, where I am urging you to take steps back in your development and unlearn everything that you’ve built within yourself throughout your lifetime, but rather I am writing to tell you that it’s OK to go back. It’s OK to discard an event that has impacted you negatively and go back to a more innocent mind frame. It’s OK to let loose. Who, ever, said that life was systematic? Who, ever, defined the criteria of developing as a human being, and dare I say it, of developing as an adult.

On your journey to adulthood and beyond, let your heart grow bigger, let your arms spread wider and let your language become kinder. As your mind and body change with time, remind your soul to stay young; it is the only part of you that time can’t touch.