"When you're older, you will understand"

A lot of things have changed recently. Change is good - or at least that's what I've made myself believe over the years.

Whenever I have been upset or disheartened by something, I've always looked for how that event can be turned into something else that can cause a positive change. When I was unemployed for 8 months, it was awful. But instead of constantly having "low" days, I would ask myself how those experiences were shaping me for a better change. And it's true, once I got out of that phase of unemployment, I understood exactly what had changed.

I've spent far too many years in a general faithless and unhappiness state to know that every event - especially negative - has a learning experience attached to it. It makes you stronger, perhaps a bit more stone hearted (which is where I currently am I believe), and aware of the world and its chaotic personality. I've understood this from a very young age. I didn't have to wait till I was 40-something - having suffered several heart-breaking relationships and then eventually marrying and having kids, watching close ones suffer and die, or having gone through 15 different jobs - to understand how the world works and what kind of people live in it.

It is interesting then, when people older than me come up to me and say "you're a child, you won't understand" or the best yet "you have no opinion, you're just a kid still and haven't seen the world". I particularly love the whole "haven't seen the world" part of the sentence. Things like that not only insult me, but make me very angry, considering I have witnessed events that average people don't go through until their late 30's or even later. From where I stand, I think I'm mature, level-headed and completely aware of everything around me even though I may not always seem it. I find it frustrating then, when I am undermined and seen as somebody who can't share an opinion - apparently being 23 means not being "old enough" to say certain things, think certain things or feel certain things. However, it is funny how these thoughts are mostly confined to the Asian culture. Yep, I said it.

Trust me, at the age of 14, I had no desire to have to change the level of maturity I was at. I would have loved to stay in a protective bubble for at least another few years - but it was not meant to be. I don't want to be known as a crabby old lady, or as a boring individual - but I think in times of sharing opinions and being seen as an adult (about bloody time), I would like to be acknowledged as having a good head on my shoulders.

As per usual - a song to end my thoughts.