17 again?

A friend protested when I prematurely reminded her of her upcoming 30th birthday. In jest, she remarked that the best age to be at is 17, not 30.

I have my fair share of apprehensions about approaching thirty. But I am very much convinced that I would not trade what I have now for my 17-year-old self. And it's not about whether I get to retain the current possessions and experiences except that I enjoy them in a younger physical body.

I am not sure if it's possible, to live a teenager's lifestyle, with a 30-year-old's world view, and not less importantly, budget. Recall those reckless backpacking days when we slept in train stations and grim underpasses!

At the same time, I wonder if it's wise, to chase our younger selves, when we've already invested several years of our youth presumably to build what's of value to us.

If anything, I have definitely learnt a few important life lessons, chiefly about how complex human nature and the world can be. Yes, I could carry these lessons back in time so that my younger self may actually avoid her numerous follies and misadventures. But that begs the question of whether I will then indeed learn those lessons first hand and have them vividly imprinted in me, even if they may sometimes hurt.

So, does that imply I am contented and at peace with my 29-going-on-30 self? Those who have spoken to me recently would say that even if I am, my incessant griping certainly does not reflect that state of mind.

But as I think a bit deeper about contentment, I begin to see three dimensions of it. The first - discontentment with our lives vis-a-vis what people around us have - sets us into a relentless rat race that may end up leaving us fundamentally dissatisfied and unhappy. The second - discontentment that keeps looking back into the past and wondering how differently things could, might have been if we had chosen this or that path - is futile, since there's no what ifs in the real world. What ifs are just intellectual constructs, little thought experiments that occur under strictly controlled conditions possible only in our imagination.

But, the third dimension of discontentment is probably what we should always maintain a healthy dose of. It's the forward looking cousin of the previous two species. The first has eyes full of envy, always nervously glancing around with unspoken insecurities, while the second has glossed over eyes in which you can constantly see regrets and lethargy. The third is different. Its vision is fixated on the future. It speaks of a hope and optimism, that perhaps the best is really yet to be.

It's with this breed of discontentment that I hope to usher in the fourth decade of my life.