Comment With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility..thus (Score 1) 300
I am 22, and have spent most of my life since 13 studying at schools in different countries then the one where my family lives and works. Thus, I guess that whole '100 miles or more' from the article applies to me, but for high school it was more like 2000 miles, and for college more like 12000 miles. I am currently a director on the board of three companies in my father's group with a combined turnover of $10,000,000.00 annually, in the jewellry manufacturing, diamond polishing, and luxury retail sectors. While this is not a massive turnover by any means, being as we are located in a developing country, and that we employ over 150 people across the group, and that we've been around since 1970, we are in the top 125 companies in my country (top 100 in a few years if everything goes to plan). What does this have to do with maturity?
Well, being 22, male, having gone to a liberal arts college in the USA, having grown up on a tropical island, yep, its a developing independant island nation, I naturaly am completely spoiled, party-addicted, hopelessly immature, ex-school and university party and comedic personality, and basically the type of person who was late for everything in all parts of my education and life, perpetually underachieved and defaulted on my responsiblities due to party binges, I handed in my all-too long thesis that I still don't believe is finished on the last possible day, a month late of the original final deadline, still somehow graduated with my double major, and promptly stopped on stage at graduation, attempted to coerce the crowd into increased applause, which they obliged, and then swayed over to the president to collect my degree.
Now, less about me, more about maturity. I was asked by my father to come back here to work with him, and I naturally wanted to come and hang out back home for a while (tropical island, duh!), so I said okay during my winter break before graduation, little did I know what I was getting into. Two days after graduation, I was in New York, meeting clients, and learning the business in their many offices for two weeks. This entire work and responsibilty shock snow-balled to the point where my father, after dragging me all over to meet our associates and giving me a few months running around the companies and departments, just threw me into the top of the management structure, and stepped back, and in fact over the last three months, our peak selling season at retail, he has been overseas not really on business for about a month, and was at home, albeit with a sprained ankle, for 3 weeks, with me driving him to work when he wanted! On top of this, leaving me to take care of any other personal investment projects that he seems to have conveniantly left to me to look after.
The long and short of all this is that I have and had no desire to manage the family finances, and thus be responsible for myself, my mother and my sister, be responsible to all those employees for the health of the company and thus their jobs, their familes income and thus lives, and any and all the other mistakes and irresponsibilites my father may have made in the past that have been thrust on me as a new manager and memeber of the controlling family, but I unfortunately have had no choice thus far, I have been forced to give up my life, from getting drunk 4 days a week, getting high everyday, basically being one of those people you hate if you work hard because they seem to never do, to someone who never goes out, who falls asleep in front of the TV on Friday nights while all his friends are waiting for him at the bars/restaurants/nightclubs, and in fact I've even started doing the same thing Sat nights as I work Saturdays to, and I can't do the whole socializing and work thing anymore, I tried so hard for the first 6 months but its nearly impossible now, I even used to go out mid-week in the begining.
So the question is, am I more mature because I've changed my life to adapt to these responsibilites that I can't avoid because there are so many people depending on me to be there everyday, to work at night calling the US, to live and breathe the companies and nothing else, to be as professional, if not more, then our overseas associates, and to instil professionlism in our companies and our employees and in our relations to our local associates? Or am I just adapting to what I have to do, am I still an immature brat who as soon as the pressure is off will revert back to my old hedonistic ways and throw the entire responsibility back on the shoulders of my father and/or an incompetant manger just to be rid of the daily, weekly, and monthly responsibilites that will never go away, and have made my life mind-numbingly difficult and unfun for the last 6 months. Is maturity measured by the actions and interactions of an individual, or is it by age, or is it both, as in once you reach a certain age you're more able to maintain a maturity level and the associated actions and interactions without wanting to run away to the party scene and denial of responsiblity that youth gets to bask in throughout their teens, and what all children should be allowed to do.
I dunno, because I sure as hell don't want to be mature, and am always just playing the role I know my position demands of me in the context of the employees, national law, and our associates and the company image and future success, but I sure as hell don't feel mature when I stay up late watching tv or bullshiting on the internet, and press snooze for half and hour in the morning and then rush to open up one of our stores at 9:30 am and am almost always just in time, or barely early or just late, all because I'm not being 'mature' and 'responsible' and getting to bed early like dad knows best, and the other managers know best...I don't feel mature most of the time when I'm being an asshole on the road and racing with people on the commute just to keep myself amused while scaring them and everyone else to death, I don't feel mature when I just deny the fact that I need to do something, until the point that when I do it I look like an idiot and have to spend half my time apologising for my own incompetance, instead of being mature and dealing with tasks and problems streight away, and I don't feel matre when I go out and act like a fool with my friends at bars and pass out in my car (least I don't drive drunk!) to be woken up by random people knocking on the glass, and I don't want to be mature either. We have our whole adult life to be mature, and while I may legally be an adult from 18, I'm not going to be 22 forever, or in my twenties forever, and I don't want to be so mature this young that by the time I get to my 40s, I realise that I never enjoyed my youth, and have one of those midlife crises where I try to desperately cling onto a past where I was young and able to do anything, follow dreams even if I failed, be crazy etc. etc., when by then I might have a family, no help with my responsibilites, that would make such a break-down far more dangerous than running away from the responsiblity now, and coming back at the end of my 20's.
Thoughts? Or am I just crazy and up late on a work night being immature???