… I never ask out to play anymore. But he waits, sleeping under the stairs, armed and ready for cowboys and Indians, outfitted for camping in a cardboard box, rod at the ready in case we go fishing…all the things we used to do.
Writing this, I realize Peter Yarrow and Leonard Lipton said this six decades ago: “Dragons live forever, but not so little boys…”
I would never have grown up had I not been forced to. I vividly remember childhood intimations that adults live dreadful lives, burdened with worries about spouses, children, work and money. It appeared self-evident at age 16 that a kind of hell ensued from the largely emulative needs to marry and reproduce: surely if everyone is doing this it must be the “correct” way to live, and one doesn’t want to miss out, right? Many people have in fact lived dreadful lives and several of them have even told me so.
I have to agree. There are things about my present life (which is the summation of every substantive choice I’ve ever made) that I like, and things I wish were different. But in my darker moments, I have to consciously avoid the “If only I had done this…” fallacy.
We have no way of knowing how our lives would have turned out had we done something differently. But the one thing you mention is certain: Living a conventional life is no guarantee of happiness or contentment. I likewise have heard it often from my more conventional peers…and have observed in others.