My Nephew’s Speech Progress Taught Me to Let Go of Deadlines
Milestones, misconceptions and small victories
This morning, my 12-year-old nephew was counting down the ages and classes he had to go through before turning 18.
“And when you turn 18, then what?” he was asked, with hand signals.
“Talk.” My nephew replied, clearly excited at this prospect.
Backstory
My nephew has a speech and hearing defect.
He wasn’t born with it. He was a perfectly healthy baby who used to respond to the sounds of his environment.
However, due the gross negligence of a health care professional who assured all was right with him when his mother took him to the hospital after a health scare, he lost his hearing.
It’s unfair. He never deserved to get a disability because someone was slacking in a field he was supposed to be a professional at, but we’re here now.
I don’t want to get into so much details because it’s deeply personal, but due to certain circumstances, when my nephew turned 9, all he knew how to say was “I’m fine”. He didn’t even know how to say his own name.
He’s been long taken away from his previous environment to a better one now and can now hold fragmented conversations. And he’s also excellent at math and art, as we’ve found out in the past 3 years.
So much improvement that anyone who knows of the circumstance can notice. Yet, he doesn’t see it himself.
He dreams of turning 18
Turning 18 for him means he becomes an “uncle”, as he calls the older men around him.
Turning 18, like most of us believe, means adulthood for him. Freedom.
And as a child, especially one still learning of the world, you believe that adulthood means you’ve suddenly figured it all out. All becomes well, and life becomes easier.
I’m sure most of us reading this have long realized how untrue this is.
We never stop figuring it out. We never stop having challenging moments sprinkled about.
However, for a 12-year-old boy, who is still trying to grasp certain concepts, turning 18 means all his problems are gone. Turning 18 means he can finally talk as fluently as he sees his peers doing.
The rest of the ages probably don’t matter as much to him, because turning 18 is the goal.
And now, that’s all he’ll look forward to.
Life doesn’t start happening when we achieve goals, it happens before
Sometimes we forget to live when we chase our dreams.
Most time we just survive, so we can get to the dreams we’re aiming for. We believe getting there would be the end of the problems we currently face in the current phase we’re at.
We believe everything would be magically better if we finally get the dream life or item we’ve been pursuing.
But does it?
Like my nephew, who thinks turning 18 means he would start speaking better, what are the goals we’ve set for ourselves and narrow down so much on because we believe it’s the ultimate? And thereby let other areas of our lives pass by.
What is the bigger picture we’re looking at without realizing that we’re missing the picture fragments that put it together?
My nephew probably doesn’t realize his massive improvement from when he was 9 to this moment because he’s looking forward to turning 18 when, in his head, he would be perfected.
He’s missing seeing the little improvements that would pile up into something bigger. He’s missing seeing the gradual process that would definitely take time to manifest.
However, now he’s set a deadline for himself for when it should come true.
Setting goal deadlines does more harm than good
We all set deadlines for ourselves in one way or the other.
Most of the time, it’s unconscious.
- Deadlines to graduate from school.
- Deadlines to get married.
- Deadlines to have children.
- Deadlines to buy that house.
- Deadlines to be financially free.
And when it doesn’t happen by then, we spiral down.
I’ve set many deadlines for myself and it was a major reason for a decline in my mental health as an older teen.
From when I was 7, I’d already planned and calculated my life.
By 16, I would graduate secondary school and head to the university. By 20, I would graduate the university.
And Lord knows, before I turned 20, I was already supposed to be a multi-millionaire.
I’m now 22 and heading into my 2nd year of university for the second time.
And ah, I’m not the multi-millionaire (I actually used zillionaire, bless my little heart) I thought I’d be before then.
This deadline of when I should graduate secondary school and university was what rushed me into getting into a university immediately after graduation.
I have to be in my first year at 16! If I don’t, my whole life’s plan would crumble and I’ll be lost.
I did get in at 16, but I left at 19 because I realized I never thought all that through.
I never sat down to actually recognize why I was going to the University if not for this deadline and not wanting to be the black sheep in my family (“all your siblings got admission immediately after secondary school” as my dear mother once told me, offhandedly).
Going to the University, for me as a 16-year-old, wasn’t to be aligned with my life goals. It was to fulfill a deadline. And what did that get me?
Go at your own pace
Sometimes, we have to sit down and think.
Like go on and just grab a chair (or a brick, if you wish), sit on it, then get lost in thought.
Ask yourself about your dreams, about your goals, and the deadlines you’ve most possibly set for when to achieve them.
Recognize them, reflect on them, then let them go.
Let go of all the pressure you’ve put on yourself because you don’t want to feel left behind.
You’ve probably heard this saying so much it’s starting to feel like saccharine-sweet positivity and motivation, but really, everyone is on their own path in life.
I want to recommend this Stray Kids song, My Pace. You don’t have to understand or vibe to it (although I feel it’s impossible not to). Just take a look at these (translated) verses from the song:
I don’t know where my destination is yet
I don’t know
I don’t know how I’d look like at the finish line, I want to know
But for now I run on the road ahead of me, I’ll decide later
Until then, I’m not looking at others
Don’t forget my speed, my lane, my pace
Takeaways
Focus on being in your own lane and get rid of the thoughts that try to make you feel like you’re behind.
For how can you be behind when this is your own journey?
Let your whole focus not just be on accomplishing your goals before a deadline so much that you forget to live. Because what if you get that dream come true and find out that you missed out on the important things on the way there?
You got your desire, now what? What else will you live for when you already centered your whole life on it?
Remember to live. And remember to take it at your pace.
Only then would you truly discover the beauty of living.
