Does Conforming To Societal Norms Make People Old?

Written by Linda Mains

What makes a person an adult? Is it the bills that they pay and are responsible for? Is it the job that they make it too every day? Is it taking care of family, friends, and loved ones? Is it spirituality? Is it being a C.E.O?

So are my questions about what makes an adult, really in the big picture of things; "meaningless?" So you're 16, then one day you're suddenly 19 years old. In the eyes of the law, you can fight and die in a war, pay bills, get married, and of course you can have children. Or...you can do any of the wonderful or awful things, that your parents went and did. Doing things that your parents told you, you had a responsibility to do. Still, I have a wandering mind, when it comes to this subject of conforming. Aren't some people just cut from a different cloth so to speak? Some of us are like the toys that where broken and unloved, that couldn't find homes during Christmas in that claymation Christmas special. Some of us, really weren't the popular ones in school. Some of us where bullied, or we simply were unloved. We eventually rebelled, becoming the unloving rebel without a cause. We never grew up, we didn't care about societal norms, and we lived the lives, the way we wanted to live them.

I'm 38 years old today. I still love listening to new music. I have a few favorites that are old songs. But you will never find me, stuck in the 90's, like that song Stacy's mom. Society almost expects everyone, to age the same. It's almost like, after you hit 35, you will actually hear some men and women, talking about, how they need to conform to the way that the rest of society thinks; about aging and adult hood. Sometimes I feel like, I'm in outer space, when my friends, start talking this way. So now that you are 35 or turning 36, you had better go and sign up for a burial plot, because you sure do have one foot in the grave! Their mentality, which is actually coming from many people today in society. People that I have either known or have talked to. Is utterly ridiculous! You know the saying; you're only as young as you feel? Well people, unless you fall ill, or know you only have 6 months left to live. That statement is so true!

Really there isn't anything graceful, about "GROWING-OLD!" But if you're only 35 or 36 years old, or even 40 to 48 years of age. Don't let people, who's only goal in life, is to tear anyone down, anyway they can. By using their age, as some kind of a put down or social weapon against them. I met a 21 year old woman, from Ohio. She said to me; "age is just a number! You're still young until you hit 70!" I really liked that statement. Why did I like it? Because, it wasn't a prejudiced statement against age. Since I have turned 35, I have had my ears filled, with those types of prejudiced, negative statements, against my age. Do you want to know whats really funny to me? When I was 21, I did actually think, that when I got to be 35. My life would be over! I could picture myself, sitting in a termite invested rocking chair, listening to some really old music. Which was playing out of my radio on my porch. While I rocked in that chair and pet my cat. Now that was the future, that I had pictured for myself. I believed that ultimate future, when I was 21. Thank God that never happened! Although, in my life time, I have gone threw more bad relationships, then good ones. Of course, I don't like to admit too the bad relationships. Although, I really do believe, that God puts people in our paths. Sometimes the journey ends, when neither person in the relationship, has anything left to learn. That's exactly what happened with my ex-husband and I. If I would have stayed with him. I would be that woman in that rocking chair! I would be really old right now! Why? Because my life, really wasn't going anywhere, while in that relationship. So I spread my wings, and split! I moved out and I was the one who broke up with him.

Life is a journey. So if you're feeling really old at 35 or 45, how are you going to be able to, get threw the rest of your life?

I've seen the age thing happen to everyone in my family. Now, I always was, and still am considered, the black sheep of the family. And I really believe, that my black-sheep status, has kept me young longer then their; getting mortgages, paying rent, bills, and making sure everything was done attitudes towards life. While they continuously went to work year after year. To a dead end job, which was repetitive, repressive, light less and humorless. I have never really worked in the regular work force. I did from the ages of 18 till 27, and when I was 27, I was stuck behind a computer, taking surveys. At my 8 to 10 dollar an hour repetitive job. But one day, I just thought to myself; if I do this for the rest of my entire life. I'm going to wind up like the main character in the story, "A Cat On A Tin Roof." You remember that story, don't you? Where this guys whole entire life, was lived in denial. He thought he had a great job, great kids, and a great wife. But the reality of the situation was, his job sucked. His wife was alright, but not great, and his kids where failures. So not being able to live with his ultimate defeat in life. While also having to look at the truth, about what his life had become in the face. He took his gun, he went outside, and he proceeded to blow his head off! I really didn't want to wind up like the main character of that story. So I decided a long time ago. That whatever job I did do. That it couldn't be a regular boring 9-5 job. It had to have a lot of people, that I could talk too..people will argue with me about my attitude. They'll ask me;"when the hell do I plan on growing up?" My aunt always was asking me, when the hell, did I plan to live above the radar? You know when I will probably start paying taxes, by conforming and getting a normal 9-5 job? Probably never! Honestly, I personally don't know, when or if, I could ever be normal? Some of us, are just cut from a different clothe. I'm not trying to impress anyone, or conform, to make anyone in this world happy. Like Cartman from South Park said; "I'll do what I want!" Except I plan on doing it, till the day that I die! Now I guess to some, this attitude, might make me selfish. Maybe? But is it selfish, to not want to wind up old and dusty, from societal conformity?

Right when you come out of the womb, someone somewhere, will try to make you conform to what they want you to be. My only question to all those types of people in the world is;" if you didn't like the person, that's your friend or lover in the first place? What makes you think, that you're going to like them more, after they conform and start doing things, that you want them to do? Things that they don't like doing in the first place?" I really do believe, that conforming, really does make people old. What do you think?