When I was seven, about the age that you act now, I was in the second grade.
Most mornings, my teacher Mrs. Price gave us a timeline of work to do. It stretched from one end of top of the chalkboard to the other. You could imagine a sort of Jeopardy of topics. If you panned across the top of the board, there was one category of work after the other that changed daily.
The first item on the far left might be a math sheet. The next would be a reading activity. The next activity would be a grammar sheet. The fourth one would be learning a bible verse. The fifth would be Potent Potables.
And so on.
Mrs. Price used this method of classroom work to let students work at their own pace. We weren’t all at the same level. While I was on activity 10, my neighbor — who needed to pee so badly he stuck his leg out into the aisle and shook it violently — would still be on activity number one. I’ll never forget how he was too scared to ask Mrs. Price if he could use the bathroom.
In second grade, I was bored a lot. Bored even when Mrs. Price busted out her piano bench and went to town singing the “Bee Eye Bee Elle Eee, Yes that’s the book for me!” and other hits of the day.
It was on the days when I was waiting for the other kids to catch up that had thoughts like, “Why aren’t I paid for this work? I feel like I come to a job every day. I’m going to be an active member of society one day. I’m going to do great things. [I thought I was going to be a doctor back then]. They should pay me instead of my parents paying them to be here.”
I was a disgruntled student. I should have quit and became a doctor at seven. I could have cured cancer by now.
Adults are myopic.
And you. Yes, you. Stop acting seven.