A friend of mine was posting pictures on Facebook of the Town Boys and Girls Club I went to years ago. And of course I went through them, looked at the ones with me and the ones with familiar and not so familiar faces. And of course I became nostalgic because those days were generally pretty cool. And of course I began to recall the current condition of most of those people.

One thought I had was, "those days were much simpler". I'm talking back when I was a preteen, but most of the kids there were younger than that. I asked myself, why were those days simple? Well, back then the only two things we had to worry about were homework and bedtime. As I posted as my Facebook status:

"The simplicity of childhood comes from the fact that in those days everyone was taking care of you. You didn't need to work to get your necessities. There were programs everywhere trying to make you the best person you could be. But then we get into the teenage years and now, the early adult years, and we're expected to be independent and dutiful. There is no Town Boys and Girls Club for the 18-25 division."

But I read that and it made it seem like once we hit the adult years, we're on our own. So I appended this comment:

"Of course, that does not mean we're left to fend for ourselves. There are still those institutions that will care for us - work, college, church, etc. - but now we are expected to take the initiative and join the first and contribute in some way."

And a new thought occurs to me. Could it be that life isn't as complicated and un-simple as we thought? Sure there are plenty more things we need to be more concerned about that were mere abstract concepts in our youth - work, college, dating, bills, driving, etc. But I wonder if maybe we exaggerate how these make things so difficult. On Facebook, at least half of all the status updates are somehow sad, depressing or generally negative. Are things really that difficult, or is the simplicity of life still there, unrecognized by us?

Crazy thought, feel free to discuss.