Youth is hasty.
Thursday's are Viking quote days although I'm doing every second Thursday now and interspersing my, think like a leader, series on the alternate day. Sometimes I choose a quote randomly and sometimes based upon relevance or meaning to my life, and share some thoughts on it. These thousand year old phrases still offer value in modern society. original im src
This week's Viking quote
Youth is hasty.
My niece, @smallsteps, had her first day at preschool yesterday and I received a really nice picture from my brother, @tarazkp, to mark the occasion. You can read about it here. And yes folks, she really is as cute as her uncle G-dog! Anyway, she's a little older than I was when I first went to school, the Finnish school system works a little differently to Australia's, but it made me think about my own first day at school which I remember quite well.
The first day of school is a momentous occasion in a person's life and one that heralds great change; it's one of those big steps that leads to a whole lot more.
Whilst the influence from parents upon the child is still present, a whole new set of influencers surround them, the other children and teachers in particular. It can be confusing and exciting at the same time and we can pick up such valuable experience and understanding together with many bad habits as well: Swearing, insolence, recalcitrance, selfishness, entitlement and so on. My niece, and her parents, will have to deal with that of course, and I hope it goes well for all of them but, either way, it's a necessary journey all children need to make and it can place them well to move forward into young adulthood and life beyond; it's a learning process.
I selected this quote today because of my niece and the journey she embarked upon yesterday. It'll take her forward into life and along the way there will be many obstacles, twists, turns, false trails and forks in the road and it's through navigating all of those and more that life and opportunities will open up for her, and it's from there that wisdom derives.
It is said wisdom comes through age and experience and I agree, although I have met many people who have not gained it over time and through experience for many reasons.
Wisdom comes from other places also, such as the success and failure we go through, loss and gain and tragedy and triumph and it can be learned from those doing great good and great evil. It comes from so many different sources...what's constant though, is that we have to should take it, understand its relevance or irrelevance and accept and use, or deny and discard, it accordingly.
They say youth is wasted on the young and, as a fifty two year old man I agree....to some degree at least.
Young people can act very rashly, see importance in that which is ultimately unimportant and generally seem slow to learn which helped coin the phrase learning the hard way I guess. This has something to do with the slow development of the prefrontal cortex which can take up to 25 years to develop in a human, and longer in males than in females, however that doesn't mean valuable lessons and, subsequently, wisdom can't be learned along the way; they always are...should the individual choose to accept see the lessons and apply the wisdom.
The journey through the early phases of life are learning years, (as are all years of life to be honest), and can set up a person for an extraordinary life. There's always mistakes though and the young will always act hastily when they should not...Through it comes experience and along with the time-journey, those experiences, influences and the understanding a person applies, all equate to wisdom, the acquisition of which sets the tone for all things.
I can't count the times in which I acted rashly as a child (and adult too). I can't count the (often avoidable) mistakes I made, the moments I was childish, stubborn, and many other things beyond but...I learned though, little by little. I began to understand, to see different options for my thoughts, attitudes, behaviours and actions. Now, well...I am what I am for better or worse, but I know that all of those hasty, impulsive, thoughtless and often nonsensical things I did helped me learn and develop wisdom. I still do some of them now though, the adult versions; I think we all do.
That's it for this week, a thousand year-old Viking quote about the journey of life and how through youthful rashness and hasty behaviours, mistakes and faults can come wisdom and a better adult life moving forward.
Please feel free to disagree with my interpretation and add your own in the comments below.
Skol.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised so be humble and kind