Change

As I quickly (and reluctantly) approach the age of 30, I can't help but realize the significant changes that my life has gone through in the past 3-4 years. I always knew that things change over time, especially the way you define the world around you. But I think the rate at which change has come is ridiculously and alarmingly fast.

I doubt my parents experienced these changes as fast as I did. After all, my generation is the first to really be susceptible to globalized influence, as life-altering inventions like satellite television and the internet started to emerge. The amount of information that I am currently bombarded with on a daily basis is probably 100 times the amount of information that my father was faced with when he was my age. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out the positive correlation between quantity of information and speed of personal evolution.

I picked the word "evolution" because I feel that what I am going through is something that is much bigger than simple change. It is an absolute breakdown of everything that I thought I had figured out, and then having it completely redefined in much more realistic terms. As you age, you definitely become less of a dreamer and more of a realist. Well, that's the way it's going for me at least. But every now and then, I like to reflect on my life as a whole to see how my life (and everything around it) has progressed as I have aged.

When you were a teenager your friends were more or less the same through all of high school, with a few upgrades and downgrades here and there. You did not necessarily experience that many adventures beyond those that took place at school, at your house, or at your friends' houses. But it doesn't matter, for these were your BFF's, your friends for life. In your senior year, you suddenly realize that graduation looms, and you are running out of time. You spend more time with friends. You have fun more. You laugh more. You take more pictures. You rack up more and more memories. Then graduation day comes, and you are overwhelmed with sorrow. You listen to the valedictorian speech. Or maybe you're the one that gives it. You play a song you wrote for your friends, or you listen to one that your friend wrote. Your friends vote you as the guy with the biggest heart. Or the girl with the prettiest smile. Or the guy most likely to become a professional athlete, musician, pilot, doctor, or inmate. The ceremony ends; you throw your cap in the air. And then you frantically look for it because you want to keep it as a memory. You walk around school with your friends one last time with your year book in hand, writing one last note to each other, something from the heart. You find yourself even going up to the people that you weren't that close to and giving them a hug and saying goodbye, because you realise that for some reason you will miss them too. You visit the computer room where you and you friends used to sneak in during lunch break and play games. You visit the music room where you kissed the first guy you liked. You visit the gym where you and the rest of the varsity basketball team practiced and hosted games, winning some and losing others. You and your friends organize one last get-together at a friend's house. It ends with pictures, tears, gifts, shared memories, and promises to always keep in touch. You look into your boyfriend's eyes and fight back the tears because you know that this is where you go your separate ways. You hug your best friend and you are both in tears. She cries because she'll miss you, and you cry because you're in love with her and never told her.

When I got to university, I started meeting more people, and as the years progressed, I grew more attached to my new-found buddies. It makes sense, after all, university years are the adventure years, and these were the people that have lived through the wild and crazy times with me. But with every plus comes that impending minus. You eventually lose touch with most of your high school friends, and the ones you do keep in touch with from time to time, things are not necessarily the same. It's because time and experience has taught both you and your friends new things about friendships, to the point that very little brings you together with that person save for the good memories, which eventually lose their "oomph" as they are replaced with fresh ones.

But university isn't just about friends. It's also about relationships. I think back to when i was 20 years old. I was a sophomore, dating a girl I was crazy about. I was a hopeless romantic. I remember how nervous I was when I asked her out. I remember how happy I was when she said yes, and I remember our first kiss. I remember the flowers I surprised her with the next day. I was hooked on love. I was a dreamer. But again, things always change, and 3 years later I told her that I was done, and we went through a quick yet violent break-up. I will never forget the first thought I had after I left her house that day: "It's amazing how 3 years worth of a relationship ended in 15 intense minutes". But that is the essence of change. It simply happens, and you have little to no control over it. In three years I went from being madly in love with this girl to not being able to stand the sight of her or hear her voice. And again, fast forward almost 5 years, we still haven't seen or spoken to one another. But after all this time, after I have changed yet again, the thought of running into her one day doesn't piss me off anymore.

So you graduate from university. You are filled with sadness as you take one last walk around campus, reliving the memories as if they just happened yesterday. You start thinking about the relationships you had, both the ones that fell apart and the ones that left you with warm memories. A part of you feels like you want to make it up for the people you've hurt, and you may even be willing to forgive those that have hurt you; all for the sake of making your memory of university absolutely perfect. You're anxious to start your new life, but you're reluctant to let go of the past. Eventually, you say your last goodbyes, draw the curtain, and close the chapter on that part of your life.

Now, all of a sudden you feel that you have entered a new area. You are now more or less responsible for everything in your life. Your parents will help every now and then, but for the most part, you are independent (of course, this applies to most but not all people). All of a sudden, you feel that you are grown up. Job, responsibility, bills, etc. Some people cope better than others, but regardless, this is a phase of immense personal growth. At this point, some people try to match this newfound maturity with some sort of stable relationship, something with a potential future. Others, who are absolutely delighted with the steady source of income that they have never experienced before, choose an alternate path of flings, lifestyle, and fun. But the concept is one and the same: change. Of course, me being me, I alternated wildly between both paths, visiting both extremes, and tried to find the midpoint that suits me best. And I'm glad with my approach, because it allowed me to learn and experience way more than the average guy.

But this isn't just about relationships. It's about your life in general. The people you meet in social gatherings are not simply potential friends, they are also potential business partners, clients, etc. You take an interest in people's jobs, partially out of curiosity, but also out of wanting to know if this person can be useful in achieving your goals and ambitions. Life now isn't just about making friends and having a good time. The number one objective in most people's mind at that point is growth, be it personal, career, etc. And there's an unsaid understanding that literally all of this growth comes through the people you see on a daily basis. As a child, your growth depended on your family mainly, and your friends second. As a university student, your growth depended on friends mainly, family second, and other miscellaneous characters third (professors, counselers, landlords, bank employees, etc). But as an adult, there are no firsts, seconds and thirds. It is almost impossible to categorize and assign weights to the amount of growth you receive from the different groups of people in your life, because they vary too much, they change too much, and because quite frankly, many of us don't even have the time to go through that exercise.

3-4 years into your first job, the way you define many things changes again. Your opinions on work, relationships, friends, family, love, peace, war, and almost every other topic tend to be very different from what they were in the past. Now you start having more of those conversations where you say: "I don't even know what I saw in her" or "I have no idea why that seemed like a good idea at the time". And again, this is all part of life. You live, you learn. The experiences we face today as 25-30 year olds are much more in number and way more complex than it was for our parents, although most parents will probably never admit that. At this point in your life, many friendships are more clearly defined. Those who you thought were close friends turn out to be aquaintances. Those who you thought you could trust screwed you over. Those who you thought were assholes were actually misjudged. And in terms of relationships, many people at that point are engaged or married, while many others are still trying to figure out what they want out of a relationship. At 25-30, things are still changing, and things are still more or less up in the air.

I was once told by my parents' friend (whom I consider a wise person) that the period of fast change in one's life is between 18 and 25. According to him, that is when you really define yourself. But as I crossed his 25-year old threshold, I realised that this "period of fast change" didn't slow down at all. It sped up. And apparently that is the case with many people in my situation. And all this leads me to one of two conclusions:
1. The period of fast change has moved up and occupies a different / wider range; or
2. The period of fast change is no longer a range, it occupies your entire life.
My gut feeling tells me that its the latter.

No one can really tell. I don't know how things will be when I'm 30-40 years old, 40-50 years old, when you have one kid, then two, etc. But there is one thing that I am certain of: I think the absolute irony of life is that while it is all a living and learning experience, I think at the end of the day, when you are about to leave this world at the age of 70+, the reality is that you know very little, and you've figured out almost nothing.