Waste - Foster the People

A very smart girlie told me one of her observations. She said ‘did you notice we do most of our living in the first half of our lives? I mean having children, travelling, getting jobs it all happens before you’re fifty years old. So what do we do with the rest of our lives?’

I think that I have a superpower. It’s horribly corny but I’ll write it anyway because I think it’s one of my more inspired thoughts. I have the super power of youth. It’s the reason for the disparity between the living that goes on during our youth compared to the rest of our lives. When we’re young then life has an infinite supply of energy. We’re speeding from activity to adventure and back again, collecting curious anecdotes as we go.

All young people are super heroes and we have to make the clichéd choice between using our powers for ‘good’ or ‘evil’, being a ‘hero’ or ‘villain’. Naturally our parents try to steer us towards the ‘hero’ direction but in every epic tale there comes a moment when Dumbledore’s no longer looking over their shoulder. Instead we have to decide for ourselves. There are the people who decide to spend their youth abandoning those morals. It may be through common crimes that come with a tangible sentence or manipulation and abuse that come with abstract consequences. Eventually they have to come down from the high. Their super power is gone, the energy left in the tank is finite and they have to question their ‘good time’.

Adults (I use the term not to define an age bracket but to define a group of people past their superhero prime) use the term ‘wasted youth’ far too often. They stare at ‘today’s generation’ with judgemental looks and warning glances. But to be completely honest those two words used in conjunction are my main fear. What if I look back in ten years time only to think to myself ‘I could’ve done so much more’? These years are meant to be the best; we can sleep in until noon without anyone hounding us about being pathetic or lazy, we can stay out all night and make it through the next day without a nap and best of all we can say all of our dreams out loud without people responding with scepticism. Really I think it’s the prospect of having regrets that I fear.

So, I’m trying to appreciate my youth. I don’t drink too much and I don’t think that a packet of cigarettes and some potato chips is really a substitute for breakfast. I want to be in good physical shape so I can keep on having wonderful heroic adventures. Hopefully I can look back on these adventures with a sense of pride one day rather than regret. I can’t keep on using the excuse of time to not live fully. One day when I’m sitting around in the retirement home playing bridge it’s going to be these stories that I’m making today, tomorrow and next week that I’ll be telling. I don’t want to have any regrets.

Oh and I've been reading 'One Day'. That book has inspired my thinking. It really is amazing.