I thought being a grown up meant

Just spend five minutes writing about what your younger self thought being an adult would be like.
What sorts of freedoms did you think awaited you when you were finally all grown up?

I thought being a grown up meant the freedom to do as I wanted with no limits, my own life to be lived how I choose & where I choose & with fun all along the way.

When I was a teenager I could not wait to reach the magical age of 18. I wanted to be classed as a grown up, to be taken seriously & to embark on a proper, adult life with all I thought that entailed.

I thought being an adult would magically open all kinds of doors & bring forth amazing opportunities that mystically only appear once you become an adult.
I imagined myself being able to do & say anything I wanted with no constraints.

I thought that all my doubts & insecurities would magically disappear once I became an adult unfortunately I hadn't considered the effects of bills, financial liability, resposibility & the higher cost of everything from prescriptions to education.
These constraints are what hampers any personal freedom we may have as adults, we have to consider the effect our actions & words will have on others & ourselves. These are what makes an adult a "grown up" & although unrealised as teens the majority of us rise up to these responsabilities & survive.

What Are They Grateful For?

The website Write Anyway. has asked us to look at two photos & write about what we think they are grateful for. This is something quite similar to what I do when I watch the world go by, I look at someone & create whole lives, relationships & characters for them so I'm really going to enjoy this.


Both these people have something they are truly grateful for. What is it? Is it something obvious or something you would have never guessed? Who is this person to be grateful for such a thing/person/event?

Spend five minutes on each picture. Don’t edit yourself, don’t look back. Just write about the person and what you think s/he is grateful for.

Picture 1.

The woman in this picture doesn't look just grateful to me she looks totally thrilled, happy & proud. She looks like she has finally finished something she has been finding a trial or difficult & is proud of the way it turned out & happy the ordeal is finally over.
I'm guessing she was working on an article that really stretched her & was difficult for her to accomplish & that just a moment or two before this picture was taken she had sent off the completed work to it's final destination, a work she is truly proud of.

This woman seems truly happy with her life & I think is grateful for her life & talents & the fact that now her work is finished to the best of her ability she can finally relax a little without feeling under pressure.

Picture 2.

The man in the picture above doesn't look particularly grateful for whatever it is that has just occurred, he looks aghast, horrified, shocked, in total disbelief & despair & most likely worried about what will happen next.
He will be grateful about some things in his life such as family, friends & his lifestyle, the disaster that is occurring won't change that but he will be unable to feel or remember those things at the time because all he will be seeing & thinking about is the current disaster.

We all let our lives & it's incumbent troubles overtake our minds & emotions at times & we forget the blessings we have. We live on an emotional roller coaster reaching the highs of the first photo but also crashing down to the murky depths of the second. Life is a mixture of both of these levels & neither last forever, the high will decrease to a more sustainable level & the lows will be raised by the next success we have.

The highs may be wonderful & the lows may be devastating but truth be told hold on to your hats it's one hell of a ride.

Freewrite Friday - Lying part #2

I talked about the link between motherhood & lying & how they unavoidably go together, you can read that post on the subject here at Motherhood & Lying After posting I had a sudden realisation there is another type of organisation or genre of life that we all lie in & that is employment. In fact some occupations are just lying & getting paid for it.

We lie on our application forms academic grades get mysteriously altered C's become B's & B's become A's, work experience & responsability at work get altered locking up one night & looking after the keys becomes assistant management or showing the new staff member how to use the till becomes "training staff". These are if not lies then an expansion or exaggeration of the truth.

There are also occupations where you are paid to stretch the truth, lie or personally recommend something you have never used some of these occupations are known for doing this, occupations like lawyers, p.r people, spin doctors, marketing people, paid reviewers & estate agents.
These people in many if not all cases have to forgo some aspects of personal honesty in order to do their jobs & while that is fine for them it isn't something I could or would do.

I couldn't be a model advertising some new food & pretend I thought it was delicious or healthy if it reminded me of orange flavoured lard on a popsicle stick, although that all depends on the amount of money they're going to pay me.
I think we would all tell a lie if we felt comfortable doing so but I think the payback has to make it worth our while. It's a trade off really our honesty versus our empty bank balance & which we feel we can change & happily live with.
So if the choice came down to these options:

Personal honesty vs well paid job & comfortable life
Personal honesty vs your child doing / behaving / eating as he should

On the whole I'd rather keep my personal ethics & honesty but I'm no moral or ethical angel & given the choice I know which I'll go for so "goodbye personal honesty, hello son's bedtime & peace & quiet".