Recently, I spent time with my youngest daughter, celebrating her graduation from high school. We shared some awesome moments and father-daughter conversations. I attended her high school graduation and took keepsake photos of the event. The next night, we had a party for her with about fifty of her friends and family.
The night of her graduation, I listened to what felt like endless speeches by school administrators, faculty, and students. Of course, they all had the common themes of hope, a bright future, and their school spirit—the best ever! I began to think back to my experience as a high school student decades ago, thinking about the speech I might have written, probably arriving at the same message about how great the future would be for us all.
Had I written a speech, would my predictions have been accurate?
I began to ponder whether my high school graduation goals have really come to fruition
As I listened to the students’ graduation speeches, I got the sense that they were painting an overly optimistic picture of the future, while of course wearing rose-colored glasses.
At their age, I could not have imagined all the opportunities ahead, or the successes and failures, tragedies, and disappointments along my journey. At 18, I felt an overwhelming responsibility to support myself financially, quickly moving out of my parents’ home. My memories tend toward feeling a lot of pressure to make it on my own.
Fortunately, my work soon began to develop into a career I could never have imagined while in high school. I worked through a series of jobs with a large employer that was soon acquired by a much larger company, providing me additional opportunities. I leveraged promotions by accepting multiple relocation moves. I became comfortable with a steady paycheck, house and car payments, and putting off increased retirement savings until some mystical “later” date. Instead of taking more risks, I settled for the career I was in and began accumulating stuff.
I didn’t “take chances and soar like an eagle” as many students recommended in their graduation speeches.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” –First inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Back to the graduation party. I conducted an informal survey of family members and friends, asking them, “If you could do it all over again, knowing some of the challenges you went through, would you be willing to be a graduating high school senior again without the knowledge of what you experienced”?”
The overwhelming response was “NO!”
I found that answer very interesting. As adults, we were avoiding the pain more now than the pleasure of unknown opportunities that would unfold for us as recent high school graduates.
Our mind plays tricks on our memories and ability to visualize our future
On the train trip to see my daughter, I happened to pick up a fascinating book called Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist whose book “describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions.”
I gained some insights into how our minds and human emotions influence our happiness, memories, and expectations of the future. In many cases, what we think is accurate is completely wrong. We make assumptions and we indiscriminately fill in the missing pieces based on our current emotional states. Here are a couple of key items that stuck out for me.
Our past is not stored as movie
We each carry many memories that we have accumulated from early childhood up to the present day. Our mind is incapable of storing all aspects of the emotions, words, sights, sounds, etc. of these experiences. Much like a computer hard drive or a security video system recording 24/7, we soon run out of storage space. Our memories can store only some major pieces or blocks of these events. When we attempt to recall memories, our present mental state influences the recall of those memories and how we fill in what we think were the missing pieces.
We underestimate how past loss and disappointment affect us
There are studies that have been conducted on volunteers of how they would predict their happiness level if they became physically handicapped or disabled. The traditional response is their level of happiness would be less than it is today. Yet researchers interviewing disabled people that included blind and paraplegics found that their happiness levels were similar to the non-disabled and in some cases, they were actually happier.
Additional studies were conducted with volunteers in control and test groups asking them how they would feel about a major loss or disappointment in their lives, versus missed opportunities. Researchers found that memories of events such as divorce, family deaths, and being fired were not as unpleasant—with time—as feelings about missed opportunities. People were found to be measurably less happy when considering missed opportunities than when remembering terrible events. For those bad experiences, the mind was able to justify and minimize the events while the missed goals had too many future possibilities to consider and needed to fill in the what-if’s. There was a deep sense of loss from what “could have been”.. While time had healed some of the pain of past experiences, in terms of missed opportunities there was a deep sense of loss surrounding what “could have been.”
Visualizing our future is influenced by our emotional state
I like to plan future events and visualize how great things will be once I achieve my goals. Wouldn’t you know it, your present emotional state has a huge impact on how you visualize the future. Regarding the students’ graduation speeches about hope and success, it seemed like they were envisioning a future of rainbows, unicorns, and lollipops. That makes sense, though—it was a big day, one with a theme of a bright future.
I recognize that I have become weighed down by present situations
I can see that—after listening to the graduation speeches, attending the party, and reading a book on insights into our minds and thinking—I was feeling a bit blue. The last couple of years have been very busy for us, reaching financial independence, with one daughter’s college graduation and marriage, debt snowballs, downsizing, becoming debt free, and remodeling our new place. All of these things have taken energy and planning. Some have included disappointment, leaving me to wonder just how achievable my dreams really are. I recognize now that I must do something to spark the creative visualization of our future that includes positivity, hope, and discrete details.
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened” –Mark Twain
Time speeds by—more quickly as we get older. (I can’t believe that it’s been three decades since I was in high school!) In particular, the most recent ten years have slipped by quickly for me. We are entering a new and unfamiliar phase in our lives today. Post remodeling, post becoming debt free, and on the verge of leaving work with our employers. We believe our future involves camping, travel, healthier diets, more exercise, and additional involvement in our community. This is a pivotal point for us to change from decades of accumulating and building net worth to leaving a steady paycheck and potentially drawing on savings and retirement. The Just One More Year Syndrome is rearing its ugly head, telling us to continue to wait, due to all the scary monsters and disasters that could be ahead. I recognize that and continue to work through those worries.
Seeing the hope and creativity of young graduates is energizing, and reminds me that, no matter how discouraged I’m feeling today, there is still the opportunity to create a bright future. Even 30 years after my own high school graduation, life is still a work in progress.
Thanks for reading.
***
How about you, can you remember your high school graduation experience and your dreams for the future? Did those dreams manifest for you in ways you expected? Would you be willing to go back again and do it all over without the knowledge you have today?
Phot copyright : Viktoriia Kazakova
Abigail @ipickuppennies says
I’d definitely have to go back with the knowledge I have today. I’d know which medications to get on. And perhaps I’d skip school altogether, since I ended up disabled and, for about a decade, unable to work steadily and, therefore, support myself. Of course, if I skipped schooling, I might also not have gotten the illness that created the disability. In which case, I’d need schooling. It’s a bit of a paradox, I’m afraid.
Still, I wouldn’t go back with the cluelessness — about certain relationships (including a parental one) and my depression and other such things — because I’d suffer all over again. And I’m definitely not underestimating the suffering. Which might have been much easier if I’d been properly medicated.
I do think it’s harder to consider missed opportunities — which might have made our lives infinitely better — than it is to recall most misfortune, which we clearly survived okay. Usually.
Bryan says
I am in agreement with you on two of those points: I would only go back to my youth with the knowledge I have now, therefore hopefully not repeating the same mistakes again! The second point is regarding the missed opportunities. It is weird how our mind thinks that the potential or unknowns could mean more to us than what we actually experienced. 🙂
BTW – we were in Phoenix for a quick trip this weekend. I took a picture of your car thermostat showing with outside temperature of 120 degrees. What a scorcher! You and Tim stay cool this week. (my best friend comment: If you don’t know how to stay cool, he gives lessons)
Jenn says
I wouldn’t want to go back without the knowledge I have. I’ll take wisdom over youth any day! And though I’m REALLY wise, I’m not THAT old, right? 😉
My second son just graduated from high school as well. And he seems to ‘get’ some of the lessons I’m trying to get him to learn the easy way. I’m eager to see if he can make quicker progress than I did. And although it took me too long (as I evaluate it now) to learn some lessons, and some things did not turn out the way I’d hoped, every obstacle I had to overcome made me stronger – I’m so much more confident than I was at 18. All-in-all, I’m proud of who I am today and thrilled at the seized opportunities that I didn’t even dream about. Based on my experience, I believe, even as I sit here at middle-age, that the best of my life is still to come.
Bryan says
Jenn,
I am right there with you and Abby wanting to bring my knowledge with me if I went back to my youth at age 18! 🙂 Why keep pounding our heads against the wall when we already learned that it hurts! 🙂
It sounds like you and I have children of similar age so I know what you are going through. I am attempting to teach some basic life and PF skills to my children without getting to preachy or overbearing. It is kind of a fine line we walk before our kids tune us out. I do hope that one day they do appreciate what we are doing. I know I was in my thirties before I recognized what my parents did for us with their teaching and experience.
Take care,
Bryan
ARB says
If I could go Barack, I would give myself a laundry list of things to do different. I’d invest earlier, start my blog earlier, start my business earlier, buy property during the downturn, and do lots of things different in my personal life.
These happy speeches about bright futures piss me off because it’s all bulls***. The fact that we as a society can devalue our currency, stagnate our wages, price people out of buying AND renting homes, ship all our good jobs overseas while leaving behind an economy and culture of submission and subservience, and brainwash/shame everybody into burying themselves under mountains of debt, and yet tell with a straight face the young people who are inheriting an apocalyptic wasteland how bright their futures are instead of telling them how to survive and build wealth is borderline criminal to me.
I’m on my way to work as I type this. Going to my monthly sales meeting, actually. I’d say guess how my present state of mind is affecting my feelings about the future, but this is how I feel all the time.
Raargh.
Sincerely,
ARB–Angry Retail Banker
Bryan says
ARB,
I couldn’t agree more with you about how these speeches come off to me. I do the best I can to temper my opinion and to imagine myself in their shoes. Perhaps I have become too cynical in my old age? I also find myself getting into a “Negative Nelly mood” determining all the reasons their expectations are wrong. I have to watch that! 🙂
Stepping back from that, if we killed all the ambition of the youth letting them know just how difficult things are going to be, we might not get some of the great innovation and creativity society has gained by those afraid to try and fail. Using the example of some of my favorite classic rock bands: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, CSNY, and others – had those starving musicians quit at their first failures we would not have had the wonderful collection of music they created. Of course for them they all went on to become wealthy and they are probably the exception for most musicians.
I am looking forward to our monthly all hands call today as well – NOT!
Bryan