Jay said:

lordjedi said:

I'm 34

You sound 104.

Kids are supposed to have their own style and do stupid shit. If they didn't, they wouldn't be kids--and they'd never learn. You can fantasize all you want about telling children this and that and expecting them to follow your lead, but if you think kids do anything other than what they want to do, you're naive.

Any kid who does exactly what he's told is either too stupid to think for himself or too scared to incur the wrath of mommy and daddy. I shudder to think about what my life would've been if I'd followed the advice of all the adults surrounding me as I grew up. God bless them, but my life is mine, and the lessons they've taken away from their experiences are unique to them. This is the case with any adult advice. Two different people could experience the same event, but take away entirely different lessons based on their point of view.

And I wouldn't say YIYF is immature because he's saddened by the sounds of friends turning into weak, scared old men. Face it, not everyone is meant to fall in line like you have.

Thanks Jay, very well put. I may be biased seeing as it was me who sort of kicked off this debate (following Sean's initial post) but I agree with everthing you've said in this thread.

For the record, I love my friends, they're all great guys. But there is an element of 'this is what we should be doing at this stage of our lives whether we want to be doing it or not' to them, and it saddens me because I know they are above that kind of thinking.

It's entirely possible to be successful, hardworking, mature (in a good way) and morally sound without being boring, submissive, and intolerant. It's also very important to make misktakes and learn from them in order to grow. Life is to be lived, for better or worse.