Age-Influenced Passion and Optimism

So I recently the question on whether passion and optimism is really determined by how a person feels or by their age was brought to my attention. If you meet a child, and have a conversation with them, you realize that they are filled with so much optimism and so much passion and purity. Merely asking a child what they want to be when they grow up, most will respond with extravagant answers such as an astronaut, an actor, or a doctor. However, as one grows older, “reality” sets in, and the ideals begin to weaken and the individual begins changing, accepting and compromising. If you ask and older person what they want to be, the answers become less and less extravagant, and a lot of them end up with the classic, cubicle, nine-to-five job. So bringing this idea with myself, I begin to wonder if my passion, creativity, and optimism to see change done with the environment is really fading out because of other reasons such as school, or if it is fading out because I am getting older and maybe that is just the natural progression of things.

This topic was brought to my attention through the simulation game we did in class. The instant I heard about the environmentalist – I knew which group I wanted to belong in. I actually thought that almost everyone would choose this option and that, some would have to sacrifice this group and to be in another, to make the numbers even, but surprisingly enough, there were the fewest amounts of people in our group, and it seemed as though some of the members were a little reluctant to join. In addition, after reading the scenario, which I thought was reasonable and agreed with most of it, many of my group members, especially the older ones, were somewhat satirizing it and wanting to alter it. “Do we have to go by these thoughts or can we modify them?” they asked.

Apparently they felt that the environmentalist scenario was too extreme and too optimistic. They wanted to modify it in a way that would make it more realistic with more compromises. One of the girls kept laughing and saying, “This was so me ten years ago”. Basically saying that was how she felt ten years ago, but how she no longer feels to this day. I’m sure she agreed with some of the thoughts, but she and many others in the group wanted to take a more “realistic” approach. (But then the question comes into mind, who is to say what is “realistic” and what is not? But that is another topic discussed perhaps later. For now, we will assume that realistic views, in this sense, deal with making compromises and accepting some things as impossible.) Although I say that my passion has faded some, after this exercise, I realized that I still have it in me. I still have a lot of that optimism and perhaps “extremist” passion in me, it is just buried, but this exercise brought it out some and re-reminded me about those feelings. It rekindled the flame a little. The people in my group had to turn to me for the “youthful, enthusiastic” ideals, for I suppose their purity had been tainted with realism and acceptance. But I am fearful that my optimism and passion, which I have already felt has faded, will deteriorate as I age. I fear that I will be one who thinks, “This is how I used to think ten years ago.” But hell, when I was reading that scenario, I was thinking… “This is how I used to think a year or two ago”. Now I understand why my father once described me as an idealist.

Does passion and optimism always have to die out with age? Does reality always have to “set in” as one gets older, or is there a way to stop it from happening? If there is a way, what is it? I want to find the way, and I want to take that path because I don’t want to loose more than I have already lost. I already feel my passion and optimism fading, and I feel its fading fast. College perhaps has for me made reality set in fast. Disappointments after disappointments have made me very weary. I have realized that maybe I will not be able to get all that I want done, done, and maybe I’ll just have to accept just making a small impact on helping improve environmental conditions on the world because every effort helps, right? These are what my recent thoughts have been, but they were not always this way. Perhaps it is too late for me; perhaps I cannot go back to that way of thinking. However, rekindled passionate feelings give me a little hope. Maybe there is a way to go back to those feelings, since I know they are not completely lost. But if I do go back, how do I keep them? How do I deal with dealing with disappointments, while keeping my passion and optimism alive? These are things that I need to figure out soon, so that I know what actions I need to take.