The Growing Up Years Affect Your Whole Life

This book stresses the years of childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Some of the most significant events in our lives occur during these growing up years. We develop into our adult selves. This time period has a great impact on what we do with the rest of our lives.

So much of what I learned, accepted, and practiced by the end of my growing up years, age 25, has remained with me throughout adulthood. Most of who I am today was there by this age. This includes the same personality traits, wife, religion, and political views. Moral standards and ethics have not changed. Most values, attitudes and habits are the same. All these things still have an impact on my life today. A few things have changed due to a shift in priorities and goals with age.

I claim this is true for you too, even though your growing up years are different than mine in many ways. Merely compare your life today to when you were settled in your adult lifestyle, which could be sooner or later than age 25. You’ll find that the basic elements in your life today are very close to what they were at the end of your growing up years. Even with life changing events in adulthood like serious accidents, disease, divorce, bankruptcy, a change in religion, war experiences, or drug addictions; most personal characteristics from the growing up years remain with the individual.

Understanding our growing up years is important because this helps us to know ourselves better. We are then more capable of making good choices and meeting our needs in adulthood.

In the book I share many events from my life while growing up between 1944 and 1969. The book is similar to an autobiography, but it’s more than this. It is narrative in nature, with lots of commentary about the times and people then. Photos have been included to illustrate parts of the text and make the book more interesting.

Some events may be unique to my life. They may seem quaint to you, and perhaps historical. This is okay because they can still be compared to the growing up years of your life. You had similar, if not some identical experiences, even though the dates and circumstances of your life are different than mine. You learned and grew through your experiences just as I did. What's important is we both needed to learn the same basic lessons of life. This leads to empathy between us.

I make comparisons between the early years of my life and the lives of families today. These contrasts demonstrate that the basic needs of people have not changed. This makes the book more relevant. The important variables in anyone's life while growing up have not changed much over the decades, even though society has. Therefore, it may seem that this book is out of date, but it isn’t. The basic needs of young people today are not different than my basic needs as a young person decades ago.

There is a self-help book. In it I ask questions and offer comments for you to consider. These will help you to think about your growing up years and their impact on your adult life. You will ponder, reminisce and review things from your past. You will think about some major events during these years, and relive the memories you have. Through such efforts you'll see how much the growing up years affected your adult years. In the process you’ll understand yourself better and how you became the type of individual you are.

Many critical things developed in my life. Some examples are ways of learning, useful skills, coping strategies, and good behavior. Look for situations and experiences in the book that illustrate how these types of things developed. This will help you do the same thing for your life.

Young people have the same basic needs wherever they live and independent of the generation they are in. The goal is the same basic growth and development, education, and qualities of character for each person. Look for these things in my story and compare them to your story. This will help you analyze your growing up years and judge their quality and effectiveness.

You will discover confidence, strengths, strategies and success stories in my growing up. These are essential building blocks that should be in the lives of everyone. Most of these building blocks are relevant today. Look for similar building blocks in your growing up years. The good and useful building blocks in my life and your life should be very similar because there is no reason for them to change that much from individual to individual, nor from generation to generation.

As you go through the book, apply the good things you pick up from my life and you discover about your life. Use them to make improvements in your life, strengthen relationships, and be successful in your endeavors. But do not stop here. Influence the lives of your children and grandchildren. Help them to have the best growing up years possible. Teach and exemplify good things to each of them. This is the way to produce more good adults in the future and have a better society.