Growing up and stuff
Sometimes its good to think about how you’ve grown up, and reflect on your life “memoirs”.
When we think about what makes us, us, we can perhaps see ourselves as a byproduct of our:
- natural personality
- family and upbringing
- friends and influences
- external social environment
I’m (Nathan, one of the people who work at Rockstar) 29 – and to me that sounds really old. Earlier this year, I used to frequently think sh** I’m turning 30 later this year!!!!…omg omg world is going to end at 30.
The thing is, I really and truly feel like I’m still 22 inside – but a bit wiser.
Some things I’ve come to realise in getting to 29 include:
- You think that you’ll eventually hit this point in life, where you’ll be 100% happy and have it all. You don’t – we’re all programmed to always want more
- Everyone else’s life seems to be happier and better than yours – but everyone actually get as miserable as frequently as you.
- As you get older, you just work it out – stuff just starts working without having to think about it too much
- As you get older, you get more confident. Without really trying you just naturally trust yourself more
- The value of your individual friendships becomes far more important than the number of social groups you hang out in.
- You start to truly work out what love really means – in all it’s various forms.
As I write this post, and try to work out why it’s being posted on the Rockstar Blog (and not my personal one), I suddenly feel the urge to post some tips to some whipper-snappers in their late teens or early 2os…
Old (but short) 29yr-old-man Nathan’s tips for late teens/early tweens (who are probably much taller than Nathan)
- Travel independently and go backpacking by-yourself, overseas – you’ll discover so much about yourself.
- Do crazy stuff if you feel like it. In a worst case scenario you’ll probably have time to recover. Society just frowns at you when you want to do crazy stuff when you’re older.
- You haven’t learnt what love is, until you’ve lost it. You won’t realise it or really care at the time, but you’ve learnt the most, the first time you lose love.
- Keep your social networks strong. Keep in touch with a wide-net of people. Life’s opportunities mostly come from who you know.
- Be careful when mixing money with friendships and family.
- Don’t go with the flow. The flow is average – mediocre – normal. You don’t want to be just another pleb right? Follow your gut, your heart, your positive voice inside, and you’ll make it. You will.
- Buy Rockstar Memoirs Yearbooks.
Yeah! That was an awesome link back to Rockstar.
Edit: I just watched the first episode of Glee (research for work), and there was a part towards the end where the dude teacher (can’t remember his name yet) said a couple of things that resonated:
- “I knew half-way through that we/I was going to win“
- “At that moment, I knew who I was in the world“
- “The only life worth living is one that you are passionate about“
You live for the moments you realise this. Anyway enough preaching for now.
(As a side-note – why are Asians always typecast as weirdos or martial arts experts in mainstream tv 
? Lucy Liu, that chick from Greys Anatomy, the Asian chick from Glee, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, etc etc… There are “normal” ones too you know…)