Embracing the truth about "youth" and "old age" can bring unmatched zest to life.

When I was a kid, I heard the Toys R Us song play over my television and I said to myself, "I am literally never gonna grow up. I just won't do it." How could anyone want to live a life that's not full of fun and adventure and playfulness?

The problem is, I didn't really know what growing up meant.

In conversation, song, and movies, the narrative persisted that when you're young, you are carefree and life is exciting, but when you're old you have responsibilities, life gets boring, and—ultimately—not as worth living. On and on this narrative has gone. People have done everything they can to refrain from getting "old" by buying the most expensive cars, houses, trips. Adult toys. But what they're missing is not something to be purchased or experienced, it's something that exists inside themselves.

The truth about youth.

The feeling deep inside us that we call "youthful" is a misnomer—it has nothing to do with age.

The feeling of "youth" that most are striving forth with such effort is actually just "life." The feelings that simply accompany "youth" are attributes that accompany what it means to be a human.

The freshness, boldness, carefree attitude, hopefulness, zeal, impetuousness, playfulness, and so much more are simply what it means to be human. Not young, just alive.

Understanding Western misconceptions.

Why, then, do we affiliate those things with early life and not as we grow older? This, I think, is a Western problem (and predominantly the U.S.), because it's ultimately an emotional one. In Western cultures, we trend heavily towards focusing on the mind and the body. What can you do? What do you know? What do you look like? What do you believe? While those questions are wonderful, ignoring emotion (as well as spirit) is done at our peril.

When generations of people are taught to swallow their emotions, not feeling their feelings PLUS we're taught that not only can we do anything that we put our mind to, but almost that we must. This creates an environment where focusing on success is the driving factor and so we push forward with great effort—toward whatever "it" is.

All the while, because we haven't been taught how to healthily, robustly deal with our emotions. What this means is, we're—societally—emotionally immature. When people go through traumatic events, they don't know how to mourn, process what happened, learn from it, and move on. People may do different combinations of those or may try to do those, but it's so infrequent that someone goes through all those, that when someone does go through that kind of pain, they so infrequently have the type of support group to help them that they often have to go to a counselor to figure it out.

I actually love counseling and am a big fan of it. But in an ideal world, we don't need counselors because we can handle the weight of our pains with the help of our community.

The point is, when we don't know how to deal with our emotions, we subconsciously cover that up with coping mechanisms that hide our pain, telling us "everything will be OK now." This happens in the form of pursuing the things most centrally to our heart. But instead of merely desiring them in healthy, beautiful ways, we need them to happen to validate where we're at.

All the while, we're pushing further and further into a sea of responsibilities. Trying to obtain. trying to do. Avoiding our hurts.

And all the while, who we really are—in freeness, living a full, happy life—seems further and further away.

At that point, it's just easier to call back to a time when responsibilities were less, when hurts were less built up, when things were more simple.

But while we call back to that time, when our youth was less impeded, it is false. The answer is not to have less responsibilities or simply do more crazy or outlandish things, but to deal with the issues that are impeding us from truly being ourselves and to lean into what it means to be ourselves, our unique human selves.

Stepping out of misconceptions into a full, well-lived life at any age.

So while taking trips, doing outlandish things, and pretending that life doesn't happen when we're old may offer some respite, the only thing that can truly help us achieve what we're looking for is to step out of our pain into ourselves.

Open, free living.

And when we do this as we mature, that life that we falsely label "youthfulness" will be all the sweater as we know how to live it better and better.

Climbing trees. Being silly. Laughing without question. Pursuing passions. Then, growing up won't be a thing we try to avoid, but that we walk to with open arms and smiling eyes.