Have you ever stopped to look back and wonder where all the time went? Like it was just yesterday when you were outside playing under the rain, or on the ground using the sand to mould object and buildings, or running in the streets with a thread in the hand attached to a kite floating up in the sky, or formed two groups and then did tug of war. Times when we had nothing really serious to think of.
When you look back on these memories it looks as if they were just yesterday. Then it begins to occur to us, that we just might be getting older, from the way we think, our perspective towards things and how our interests in certain things begin to change.
You know how as we were kids we felt like when we reach a certain age; for starters 18, we would already be big boys and girls. But then we arrive at that age and we see that it's not the way we really thought, we still have a long way to go. There are a lot of expectations that we thought that by the reason of attaining a certain age it is assured that it was going to happen. But it is not really the case.
Nothing comes to anyone by age, unless the right to a driver license or permission into certain clubs or into a casino. But when it comes to achieving a certain dream or getting to a certain level, it really has nothing to do with age, but preparation. We only get what we want or where we want to get to at a particular time in life as a result of our preparation which started in the past.
Over the years, my perspective towards the term, "man", has changed. I remember when I used to think to myself when I was going to be a man, I mean get to the point when I can look at the mirror and call myself a man. I thought that most of it had to with physical appearance, like being tall with a big body frame and with beards obviously. So I predicted by a certain age when all these features were seen, that means I have graduated into the class of men.
But due to my unfavorable body chemistry, I got to that age and even past it and those features where nowhere to be found. But right now, I care less about those features because they have absolutely nothing with being a man. A certain individual is not more (permit me to use the word) "man-er than the other because of their age difference of because he has these manlike features and the other does not.
The term "male" has to do with the gender assigned to you at birth. The term "man", however, has to do with the role you play by accepting responsibilities. The marginal difference between us when we were boys to being men has nothing to do with how big we have grown physically how our mental capacity has grown. Physical growth is not by choice, but mental capacity is. So we don't run into being men. Rather, we decide to be. And the experiences we go through in life has a large role to contribute to this.
