Sometimes when I think about being in my 30s, I wonder how I got here. There are days when the last thing I remember is flying down the hill on my pink Huffy with handlebar ribbons blowing in the wind. Or dreaming of growing up to be a princess. I spent so much of my youth wishing it were gone.
Back then, time felt slow … painfully slow. I’d countdown the days until the next big event and just wait … wishing for things to speed up.
Fast forward 15 years or so and I’d give anything to have time slow down. Now instead of counting down days, I am practically begging time to slow down. I never believed people when they’d say the older you get the fast time goes.
Somewhere along the way the dreaming slows and sometimes they cease to even exist. We start planning instead of dreaming. We make lists instead of wishes. Meetings replace tea parties and climbing the ladder becomes the fairy tales we dream about.
Imagination was such an important part of my childhood, but as an adult I find I don’t have the time. There are places to be, people to meet, news to read and trends to follow.
Why can’t we have both? Can’t we hold onto the dreaming while we move up the corporate ladder? Why are fairy tales bad?