Not a child anymore

Once you reach the age of 18, you are legally able to break the “umbilical cord” that has been emblematic of your dependency to your parents. For the first time in your life, you can simply refuse their request and walk away. Beware that you can go your own way, but if you do, you are considered independent from your parents; you always have the choice to return home, except now there may be conditions, rules or barriers to re-entering your parent’s house.

We have heard the expression “home is where you make it”. For some of us, it’s our first house, for others it could be the house we grew up in, although there are others. Family trips used to be the only link that kept our family together. As my sisters and I traveled off to college, these family trips became extinct. Then as we have grown older and older, we have each moved away from “mother’s nest” and re-created ourselves in a new environment and atmosphere. For certain days of the year, we try and put our schedules aside, putting family above everything else. However, that is in a perfect world and of course some of us have prior commitments.

A decision is typically based on three measures: acceptance, refusal, or a compromise of the two extremes. In some circumstances, it’s either yes or no; others the decision has already been decided for you. Up until the age of 18, your parents may ask you to do things that you don’t necessarily agree with, but the theory that your parents know best, you do it anyway. You have learned that if you go against your parents, you are punished and therefore conditioned to always do the right thing. Reasoning: Dependent on your parents.

No one likes to be put up against the wall, pushed up against the corner, “held at gun point”, with only one answer being satisfactory; acceptance. Everyone likes options, the ability to reason and analyze to some form of benefit. To some form of degree, it reiterates that individuals are in control of their own life.

Think about it for a second…it’s your life, whatever decision you make there are liabilities and consequences associated with it. You must live with that decision for the rest of your life. In any type of sporting event, taking yourself out of the game doesn’t necessarily mean the game is over; the game will go on without you as will life. Then it got me thinking about how my life has changed; perhaps for the better or worse.

I have always been a firm believer in walking away from a situation I didn’t want to be in. Let me stop right there and explain the reasoning. Obviously, the major component in making a bias, and yet un-rational decision is based on tension. What happened to make me want to feel this way? Some people structure their lives around every minute of every day for weeks, even months at a time. Once that schedule has been altered or changed, it’s hard to adapt to change. So, you walk away, leading to the second part of reasoning. Is this decision going to be for a couple of days or months into the future? In marriage, if something is bothering you, you really can’t walk away for weeks at a time, as it shows you are unwilling to take the situation head on. In other situations, people and places may not be there from day to day. So whatever your decision is, make sure it’s the best decision as it could be your last or the last thing you say to that person. With that said, there are things I regret in life. There are even moments and periods that I wasn’t present at, that if I had said or done something different, may have turned into something great.