In the U.S., the life spans of humans, and the quality of life therein, is pretty long. But we’re still using the same timetable we did when that wasn’t the case. It begins in grade school. Things must be learned by a certain time, and that certain time is being pulled further and further back. Middle school students take credits for high school, high school students take credits for college. Of course a child can learn as fast as they wish, but many of them don’t learn that fast and are punished and shunned for it. They’re instructed to rush. To what?
To college. And It’s clearly not the natural rhythm for most, who drop out or “take a semester off” and never return. The status quo is to finish all the learning you’ll ever do, and decide on a career path, when you’re 21 or 22. Before the brain is finished growing all the way, after a period where a majority of your life experience is in a cramped classroom, a human is expected to make all of their important career decisions on the spot.
As you may very well imagine, most people don’t have it all figured out by that time. Some people need more life experience. Some need more adventure. Some need more drugs. Some need more romance. But they all need more, way more, before they can feel comfortable settling into a daily grind. For those that do, it’s expected marriage by late 20s, and kids by early 30s. Once again, why rush? What if the person you’d be better off marrying comes along in your late 30s?
For many, it does. That’s why the divorce rate is 50% for the first marriage and much less for the second. By that time they’ve typically already gained a child, that is now swept in their “second try” at settling down. For those who’ve kept the marriage together, mid-life crisis and the “empty crib” blues follow. Another common time for divorce.
If all goes well and on time, there’s a period of 20-30 years afterwards of simply waiting for death. It’s said that this is time for retirement. Leisure, fun and adventure. But why at the end of one’s life? When the bones are brittle, the medication is expensive and the mind bitter? As you can imagine, many people fail to save enough money to retire at all. They jumped the gun their whole life, scathing by on minimum resources until there is none left at the end, and they certainly don’t want to keep working for them.
There are certain physical realities to consider, like 50 year old women shouldn’t have children. But if they could more safely, it would be a great idea. They would live their lives, have their fun, build up their money and do the reproduction routine when they can really focus on it. Although that long a wait is idealism, I still propose that all things mentioned could be pushed forward quite a lot. A society of people taking their time would make many less mistakes, waste fewer resources and be way more responsible. So much heartache and trouble is caused by rushing into everything, and then obnoxious idle time afterwards. If something is worth doing(and that’s also in question), take the time to do it right.
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