the boy who desperately wanted success

"Middle aged adults must feel that they are producing something that will outlive them, either as parents or as workers, otherwise they will become stagnant and self-centered."

"Would he know that success, with her hard-to-get smile and her 'I have a boyfriend named Ben, but I still think you're cute' catch phrases held little much in the way of happiness when he was all alone?"

The first quote was directly from Erikson's Psychosocial theory, the second one is part of a short story I'm working on. Erikson's theory basically breaks us all down into different age groups by the development of our specific motivations-fears, anxieties, etc... When we're in our 20's, we're motivated by the fear of not finding someone-we long to share the rest of our life with someone else. I was most struck by the profile of the age 60 or over-that their contentment and happiness rests fully on what they produced during the first 60 years. What a depressing thought. Of course, I have the comfort(if you can call it comfort) that I'm already self-centered, stagnant, and hopelessly driven by ego. It's by God's grace that I see any change whatsoever.

And as to the second quote in relation to the first one: I'm fascinated by our ideas of success and human achievement. We have books and books on tape and seminars where we spend thousands of dollars trying to reinvent ourselves and become the "successful person you deserve to be." Joel Osteen blinks and tells us to learn to love ourselves, that we can have our "best life now," if we just try a little harder.

In other news, I'm 21 now and I still feel like I'm 17 sometimes.