Did you "sell out" or did you "grow up"?

I’ve been listening to and identifying with this song since I was twelve, so I guess I’ve been a sellout for most of my life.

Love it @SavoirFaire
I was surprised and impressed with your music link! Not sure why I was surprised.

I think it becomes a little bit of everything.
Its mature to realize that sometimes dream don’t come true but its ok to have more than one dream.
Its also a little bit of empathy, because sometimes we see things from only one side until we realize whats it really like to be on the other side. That is also mature because you realize not everything is black and white like we thought when we were young.
It can also be apathy, because you realize life can come at you hard and fast and the things you once thought important have traveled way down on your list of importance. You realize there may be other things your took for granted before that have traveled up your list. Like food, shelter, health, and security. You may want to still save the trees but right now you just want to save your car (that you need to get to work in) from the repo man, so you can still afford to feed your family. You once wept for the trees being cut down and now you weep as you wish you had cut the down the tree that fell on top of your house.

It’s not selling out. It’s growing and learning compromise. It’s a big world made up of many cultures and a young person’s idealism brings great energy to the problems of the day, but eventually the young idealist grows and matures into a productive adult. That doesn’t mean they abandon their beliefs but you fight the fights you can win, or at least make a difference. The others are left for those coming behind us. By the time we get old we start seeing how our generation did make a difference. We can feel proud, or ashamed, about that I suppose.

I can empathise with that. I used to have ideals I believed in strongly, now I am not so sure. My ideals haven’t changed but I have become more realistic. I now look on the world this way…..

“The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
W B Yeats

I’m in my 30’s and I’ve managed to not sell out and as far as growing ups concerned. I only see that as an opinionated vision. Telling someone that that they are grown up is about as.scientific as grading art.

It’s so convenient to be young and be convinced that we live in a black and white world. Frankly, I find the hues and variances in the many-colored land of middle-age to be much more interesting. I think it’s less about “selling out” than it is about choosing which hills are worth dying on, which things you can actually work to change, and how acting locally can help you think globally. I’m sure I’m called a sell-out by some people my daughter’s age, but I see different things when I look around me than they do. I feel it’s a process we all have to go through.

I’d call it a decline of hubris. Anyone who lives their life attentively inevitably loses faith in their own infallibility. Being wrong again and again—and actually seeing that you’ve been wrong again and again—takes a lot of the puffery out of you. Makes you feel a lot less qualified to criticize the choices of others.

I am working on being less critical of others (it is a struggle). However, I don’t feel as if I’ve sold out on my core values; if anything, I am living them more now than ever as I become more fully my authentic self.

I have not sold out. But I havent even grown up at 50.
i’m a dreamer, musician and abstract.

and poor as dirt. heart of gold.

Neither.

I did not sell out (much). I did not grow up (much). But I do have a more sophisticated understanding of the world. I maintain my ideals, but I attempt to achieve them in smaller chunks now. I realize that earth-shaking change at my instigation is unlikely. I’m lucky if I can affect one person for about ten minutes here or there.

I am never sure what growing up means. Maybe it means understanding more about how things fit together. If that’s the case, I’ve certainly grown up.

But if it means losing your sense of play, then forget it. I still love to play. I still dance. I make music. I mess with people. I make funnies.

I also try to be sensitive to others and to listen and be empathetic. I try to uphold my responsibilities. I do not let growing up get in the way of being able to have fun.

I haven’t sold out. I still speak my mind, and hold firm to my beliefs.
I still wear my Doc Martens listen to punk music and wear my funky t-shirts.

However, I also have a mortgage, a job that requires professional attire and children and a spouse that depend on me..so I’m not spending my day raging at the machine so much as doing what I do to bring home the bacon.

I’m just as candid, while still very professional, when I talk with executives..and I think this tends to be a refreshing change of pace for them and so far it’s worked for me. (Though, I’ll let you know when I get fired for being all too honest…I keep expecting it.)

The older I get..the number one sign that I’m growing up is that I’m learning to keep my mouth shut. I’ve started determining when I’m just not going to get heard and therefore when it’s better to bite my tongue, bide my time or both.

Neither really. As much as I rebelled or indulged in fancy, I always knew from a very young age I was more old fashioned and conservative than my parents. I saw what my grandparents did worked out better than what my parents were clinging to.