“You Have Your Hands Full” Part 2

When Gabe was doing a Human Growth and Development course, he got me one from Stratford so that we could discuss it (so that I would get what he was telling me about the course 🙂 .) I found it fascinating, especially when the professor was discussing the life stages as expressed in the questions that motivate us.

Apparently adolescence is the stage of asking, “Who am I? What can I do?” Well, yes, I have certainly been there, immersed in that all-consuming query. Young adulthood asks, “Can I love?” Haha. I have been there too! And yes, I can love, to my great relief. The real indication of adulthood is when I start asking, “What can I do for others? How can I make a difference?”

That really started me thinking. I sat on it for at least a half-year before I wrote this. 🙂 While some psychology is a lot of baloney, I think this explains the age-old frustrations of youth with the soberness of adults.

Hear me, young people. We are busy because this is the time we are supposed to be busy. It is our time to get to work, to help shoulder the weight of the world, to have children and teach them how to live in the next generation.

We have not lost our passion for living, but we have awakened to the fact that we are here in the world for a much bigger cause than ourselves. We are tired, yes, and we sometimes lose the luster of life in the daily struggle. That is where we need you to come along with your brightness and fresh ideas. We need you to join in and help lift the burdens in our full hands. I am honored to know many youngsters who already start to grasp this “What can I do for others?” in their teens. Others still haven’t caught on at 35. It is a sorry sight: a sad, stunted specimen of stagnation, the person who lives for nobody but himself.

This is why I think the American Dream is counter-Christianity/maturity. It fosters a grabby mentality, “What is mine is mine, and I intend to keep it.”

Jesus said that the poor widow who dropped two pennies into the offering box gave more than the rich men with their clinking sacks of gold. “For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living..” Get that? Living- the essence of herself. She needed those pennies badly, and she gave them away because she cared more about sharing the load than about having more bread for herself.

“Having your hands full” is an adult situation. This is how you are supposed to live when you start asking, “What can I do for you?”

And now I need to be an adult and go make lunch for my handful. 😉 I am wordy on this subject, so stayed tuned. And do let me know if you think I am all wet here.