My wife and I were talking the other day and an interesting topic came up.
This discussion came out of a headline I saw that suggested doing 15 minutes of yoga would make my 50+ year old brain “like a 25-year-old’s brain.”
For me, I prefer my well-used, experienced brain over the one I was operating in the 1980’s. Today, I am a more patient, less emotional version of myself than I was oh, so long ago. However, I would take back my 25-year old body for sure. Trust, me, there was much more hair and less, ummm, let’s just say; much less middle section, than I have now.
But, after talking about the yoga thing, my wife asked me the acid question; “If you could, would you go back and do middle school over again?”
I thought about it for a while and then came up with an answer.
Yes, and no.
I would go back and do it all over again, if I could take my 59-year-old brain. Mind you, not the part that causes me to walk into the kitchen and wonder why I am there, but the part that can make good decisions based on fact, experience and how things might affect others. (Brains are funny things, I can remember the look, feel and smell my my Dad’s lawn mower from 1968, but can’t recall where I put my keys 11 minutes ago.)
Right off the bat, I can see huge value in having my current brain in 7th and 8th grade. I’d be less influenced by emotion, I would know for a rock-solid-fact that I’m not invincible, and I could more easily tune out the middle school drama and angst. And, of course I’d ace all my classes - especially science.
Of course, I’d also feel like the oldest student in the school and would probably want to hang out with the teachers and hurt myself doing exaggerated eye-rolls at the antics of my peers.
Thankfully, I do not have the choice to stay or go. So, I’ll have to make the most of where I am.
Now, where did I put those papers I brought home to grade?
