dragon15066  

     Why do you think so much attention is given to celebrities? When there is not much to say about an individual celebrity, we don’t see much. When I say celebrity, I also include politicians, and athletes, as well as the female singers and actresses we usually see as of late. I think that it is the result of people being bored with their own lives. An example is Britney Spears. Every aspect of her life has been exploited. People act as if they are the only ones who get involved in drug and alcohol abuse, when these people know that is not the case.

     They treat celebrities as if they are an alien race of super-people, and when they do something that most have had experience in, people act like it’s a huge deal! I think that there is another reason that adds to the first now that I think about it; because celebrities are known to have alot of money and expensive things, people like it when celebrities make a mistake or get into an addictive lifestyle; it makes them feel better as sad as that is when you get to the root of it. The truth about addiction is that you don’t have to actually be the one who is drinking too much, or using drugs illegally. Everyone a person in this situation knows is affected, whether it is a relative thousands of miles away is worrying about that person, which causes them to have less energy and be less social, or anyone else.

     Now let’s assume that this same person cancels a friendly dinner with their best friend because she is down and concerned about the one abusing themselves. In this case, a person that the abuser or addict themselves doesn’t even know is affected, because now they are worrying about their best friend who canceled the dinner and lost out on what could have been a very fun night. So it touches people not even close to the abuser! So that kind of “scandal” is every day for almost everyone. These are important reasons to consider why people seemed to give attention to the celebrities and not their own lives, but as I write this, I think that there is a much more important reason; a reason that if applied, can change lives: it is being an adult!

      What do I mean when I say this? It is the biggest problem that society has: individual and group beliefs that say how we are supposed to be when we “grow up”! First, let us first look at what a child usually has that we are told to let go of in order to grow up, you may be surprised! Children have a very wide-eyed outlook on life and find everything exciting, like snow, or the squirrel in the yard eating nuts. Children love nature and the various things that go on outside with the life out there. Why is this so important? : because it shows how much is out there that is not appreciated like a child does, because we are taught that it is silly to talk to a squirrel or to go outside in a blizzard and run around. Everything we see in love stories and fairy tale movies that make us smile as adults, like rolling around in the yard, watching the birds sing and fly around, going to the department store during the holiday’s IN A GREAT MOOD, are things we used to do as children! The last example is the most sobering to me.

     Children cannot wait to go to the mall to see all the decorations and all the people with shopping bags. As adults we are taught to believe that when we “grow up, we won’t think its so fun”, the adults tell us, along with “things are alot different when you grow up”. Children look to the time of adulthood as an adventurous, challenging time when they get to do the things adults do like drive, have a fun job building houses like Uncle Mike or working at Wal-Mart like Aunt Louise, and a house of their own where THEY get to cut the grass, and design their house the way THEY like it. Children can’t wait for this time that all the adults complain about, but wouldn’t know what to do without. We are taught that when we grow up, the excitement we have for life has to be sacrificed and replaced with a negative “one step forward, two steps back” mentality, where even washing the dishes is a burden (something kids LOVE to do by the way as you remember). We are no longer supposed to act funny or weird just to be silly, (but adults love the TV show “The Office”, where the boss is ridiculously silly. This actually proves that people as adults DO like other adults who act that way, but are afraid to be themselves because of what they were taught. People would rather say that “it’s just a role he is playing”, even though he is like that in real life! How much better would work be if people could be silly once in a while, or pick on each other in a silly way without reservation of looking “childish’?

      We are not supposed to become dull, overly-stressed adults who think that things are naturally supposed to work against us in order to upset us. If adults would just start laughing at the things they complain about now, their lives would improve dramatically! These little things that adults complain about are what I like to see as “attitude updates”. They show by our reaction, what our overall mindset is. They are to keep us on our toes reminding us that the little things are valuable, and probably far more abundant, than the things considered big.

     As children, we cannot wait to grow up and have our own place, then as adults, having it becomes a reason to complain. Now that is SAD! The same rule applies to cutting the grass, washing the dishes, having company over, washing the car (that as a child we wanted so badly so WE could wash OUR car and make IT look good). The same rule applies. What can we learn from something as simple as asking why so much attention is given to celebrities? We can learn what the children already know! We can learn that we are not supposed to let go of our love and fascination for life! We are not supposed to look to the future as children with excitement and let that excitement go when the things we couldn’t wait to do actually begin to happen! Things that adults see as a reason to complain have a very different and deeper meaning. They are the very things we wanted to do so badly as a child. We can have AND SHOULD HAVE that excitement of being the adult, doing these things, in the mindset and attitude we had as the children who looked forward to doing them! We need to see life as we did as children, and most importantly, OUR LIVES!

     We need to live in that excitement and wide-eyed wonder that we did when we were children and stop passing on that futuristic false world of negativity and inconvenience to the children today! Seeing this, is it any wonder the world as a whole, is so conflicted? Adults have adopted an attitude of this false world of negativity and inconvenience as the truth, and in so doing, have created it or at least continued it on by those who have taught us this as children that this is “just how it is”. The truth is, WE determine what that IT is! We can change it in our own lives. We can create “just how it is” as a reality of excitement and wonder in our own lives and in the lives of all we know, and as shown above in the addiction example, even people we don’t. For an adult who does this, their entire life will take on new meaning as well as everything they do.

     All we need to do is re-embrace that NATURAL wide-eyed outlook on our lives we had as children, REJECT that negative attitude we were TAUGHT. We go back to the beginning, OUR beginning as children, and bring it forward in our lives today! Everything in life and how we see it will change when this is done. Realize that you still are that child, only older, and look at your life today as that child! Burdens will no longer be burdens and reasons to complain will be reasons to get excited about life, and yes even doing the dishes will be an honor! Also, get over that taught fear of failure thing as well, our ability to change our lives and succeed at great things is real, just like we knew it was when we were children.