As scary and unknown as the future can be we do actually spend quite a lot of time thinking about it, especially when we are young. Ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up and they will have thought about it. Boys often say they want to be a truck driver or a fireman, girls a ballet dancer or a nurse. Where do these early choices come from?
They probably come in part from the toys we are given to play with, but also from what we have already learnt as kids about what we should be wanting when we are older. When a boy says he wants to be a fireman, he doesn't think about battling for air in a dangerous building or cutting a critically injured person out of a car. He is thinking about the social status and pride that the uniform and big red fire engine will earn him when he gets older. He is picturing himself grown up as someone he respects.
It is therefore not surprising that our choices at an early age tend to be gender specific. If we pick these then they will show admiration and pride in our parents. If we were to make choices in conflict with this then our parents would show concern. At a young age our parents views and opinions entirely shape our view of the world and so choosing something which concerns them would cause us to picture ourselves in the future in a role which was not respected or disliked by society. We wouldn't want to do that would we? I firmly believe that we all wish to be accepted and respected, if not by our parents then by friends, colleagues and piers who we come in to contact with over the course of our lives. As a result we shape and reshaped the image of the person we want to become to ensure that it earns this respect and acceptance.
As I got older I started to realise that I probably didn't want to be a bus driver. Although my dad thought it was great when I was 5, as I got older and learnt more about the world at school I realised that it didn't pay very much. If it didn't pay very much then I wouldn't be able to afford a nice house and a nice car. As material as these things are, ambitions centred on the ownership of such items were common in the playground. I started to think about careers that could earn me the money to buy these things, thus achieving the things which in my updated view of the world would earn me the respect and acceptance I wanted when I got older.
Naturally when we get older we also start to think about relationships, family and even kids of our own. These need to be slotted into the image of our future self. After all, although we probably never thought about it much when we were young we didn't intend on growing old alone.
This is the point where gradually discovering you are gay acts as a massive curve ball to your life plan. I carried on in life thinking about and working towards the future vision of myself without ever factoring in my homosexuality because I couldn't face the huge consequences this would have on it. It simply didn't / doesn't fit with the life I had been working toward, and in essence, above all other factors this is why it has taken me so long come to terms with it.
I found that at the age of 23, just finishing university I was completely lost. My education which had for so long been the perfect detraction, was now mainly over. I didn't know who I was and I couldn't properly plan for the future because I had discovered that my current life plan and image of my future self was unachievable, and I couldn't tolerate the consequences to it of factoring in my homosexuality.
This is the point in life where we really do have some choices and decisions to make, and I'll explore this in my next post. "Being gay - Choices?"
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