Adulthood

When I was a child I couldn’t wait to become an adult. Adults were older, wiser, knew the answers to the complicated questions of life. After all, it was they who determined the age one had to be to acquire a driver’s license. It was they who decided the age at which someone was mature enough to have a say in government, via the vote. It was they who determined when to go to war or when to try other means of dealing with those whom they deemed our enemies.

But well into my adult years now, if nothing else I have learned one thing about life: the older I get the less I know.

You see, adult life is not that “cut and dried”. In fact, as a child, life was by far simpler than it is as an adult.

Shades of Gray, a song on The Monkees 1967 album Headquarters, nicely sums all of this up. I share that song with you now.

Shades of Gray
By Barry Man and Cynthia Weil

When the world and I were young just yesterday
Life was such a simple game a child could play
It was easy then to tell right from wrong
Easy then to tell weak from strong
When a man should stand and fight or just go along

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray

I remember when the answers seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear
It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate
The foolish from the wise

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray

It was easy then to know what was fair
When to keep and when to share
How much to protect your heart and how much to care

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Only shades of gray