Wishes... and Reality

How often does life actually turn out the way we hoped for or envisioned?

Maybe it's something that varies from person to person, and depends on how realistic that person's expectations are. I don't know, honestly...

I sometimes think back to my formative years and what I thought life would become. It was actually a very modest vision of reality, in many ways much smaller than the environment in which I had been raised.

I envisioned a much smaller house than anything like the ones I had been brought up in. More like a cottage, really. I looked at the houses of my parents and my extended family and pretty much all I could see was an endless nightmare of maintenance, work, and expense all for the privilege of making it look to other people like you were somehow "important."

I was probably 16 or 17 at the time, and realized that I also did not possess the desire to rule or conquer the world like many of my peers, and the suggestions offered by my elders. That was simply what you were "supposed to want."

I suppose that one of the first things I learned when I left home at 18 is that your wishes and desires are almost immediately derailed by other people who insist that their wishes and desires are more important than yours.

Of course, a large part of that perception was rooted in never having been taught anything about boundaries when I was a kid. As far as my parents were concerned I was simply an extension of them and the way you got along in life was to simply do as you were told. That is, do as you were told regardless of whether it was something you wanted to do or not.

In most ways, my parents were definitely conformists, and in no way trailblazers.

And yet?

One of the primary lessons they instilled in me was that I needed to learn to think for myself. Ironic, really. They wanted me to think for myself as long as my thinking for myself was in alignment with their thinking for themselves!

Of course, it never was.

It wasn't that I was trying to be contrary, or actively reject their values and ideas, but those values and ideas just didn't make sense to me, and I wasn't about to adopt them simply because it was "tradition."

I just struggled to get status, power and money to be so gosh-darn important as they made it out to be.

One of the first things I realized when I left home was the fact that other people in the world seemed so much angrier and more violent and rougher than I was. There was an absence of kindness, gentleness and compassion I just didn't understand.

This same feeling carried through into my first experiences with love. It didn't even feel like love — as I thought it would be — in any way. It felt more like a battle and a series of manipulations than anything else.

Was I ill equipped to deal with the realities of the world?

Probably not. Not exactly. I just had a "soft" nature that most of the rest of the world seemed to lack.

As the years have rolled on by, I suppose I have grown more cynical. While I have likely not chand on the inside, I definitely view the world — and the people IN it — with a lot more skepticism.

I treasure the few people I have met who seem less "scary," and keep to myself a lot more than I had originally figured I would.

And I guess that's OK, really... we each have to chart the course that makes sense to us.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Has the world and life turned out like you expected in adolescence? Is it better, worse or just different? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2026.02.24 23:53 PST
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