A Facebook friend got all upset at someone she ran into who couldn't believe that she had become a nurse. The someone's reasoning was that this friend was always a jokester and immature. A magician.
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| Okay, maybe not a magician. |
Anyway, her rambling post almost became some kind of existential crisis as she began to believe that everyone she knew felt that she was some irresponsible, jokester idiot and then began wondering why people can't assume that because you are now in your 30s that you are not the same person you were in high school. I would assume that it's because except for the education you received and fairly respectable job, you are the same person in high school. You have the same friends, you're in a long-term but fairly non-committed relationship and you are just as comfortable going out to get drunk as you are staying home and watching TV. As far as I know, you even have the same likes and hobbies.
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Van Wilder grew as a person more in 90 minutes than you have in
14 years. |
Meanwhile, I can guarantee that she also assumes everyone she went to high school with has not grown at all. I do the same thing. We all do. Unless I remain in touch in someone, I assume everything I knew about them has remained the same unless I learn otherwise. The problem I had with her pity diatribe is that she equated "responibility" and "being adult" with "lame" and "boring" which is something she does. She makes fun of people who get married or have kids, she likes being untethered to things and people unless they are used to make her life look better. "Being adult" doesn't mean getting married, having kids, being lame or being boring. It's about contributing so society and doing more good than harm.
I think what that person was trying to say was that while, yes, in high school she was kind of immature, she was commenting on how adult she had become. "Back in high school, you were an immature little girl but now you are a nurse contributing something our world. Good for you." In other words, instead of getting offended and needing your Facebook friends to validate yourself, take it as a compliment that someone noticed, even backhandedly, that you have grown as a person. Or don't and be fine with knowing that you have grown and don't need validation from anyone to prove that.
Fight through it Wilberforce. Get out of that bed and go do something. Sometimes you just need to power through your illness. I give this advice to everyone--except cancer patients because they never seem to appreciate it.
