never slow down, never grow old

"i don't know, but i've been told, you never slow down, you never grow old." - tom petty

i've always thought tom petty was pretty fucking punk rock for saying that. and as much as i wish i could say that's how i'm living my life, i'm totally not. but i'm gonna try harder.

when i hear this line, i equate slowing down with 2 things....

slowing down equals boring. if you're doing something boring, then you should just stop doing it. it's a total waste of time to bore yourself at any moment, and time should be the last commodity you ever want to waste.

slowing down also equals over analyzing things. unfortunately, i'm the master of this! this is the part i suck at. i'm always over analyzing shit. i'm not saying you shouldn't give things a quick think through before doing them... but i don't really think there's much in life that needs to be over analyzed. over thinking shit leads to worry and stress.

so the way i see it... boredom, worry, and stress lead to getting old.

i know we all get old. but there's different ways to get old. you can get old and boring... tell yourself that you gotta slow it down a bit, be a little safer, a little more cautious, a little more logical and a little less passionate. and then you become an old person.

but if you just keep moving forward, no matter what life decides to throw at you... never let it deter you... never let it be an excuse to sit on the sidelines... then you're thinking "young." if you're still chasing dreams and good times and using your imagination and cracking jokes and laughing and smiling a lot... then you're letting your inner child shine.

i think everyone's got an inner child. it's just that some people put it in a cage at a certain point and never let it out. and then they frown upon you for letting yours out... they'll call you immature. but that's cuz they're super fucking jealous cuz they chose to go slow and boring and now they're old and worried and stressed out all the time... you decided to say fuck stress, fuck worry, just keep on keeping on with the living.

take it from tom petty, a dude who's still out there recording music and touring the world playing awesome rock music in front of crowds of thousands... you never slow down, you never grow old.

we all gotta go eventually. but if you gotta go out, why not go out with a childish smile on your face knowing that you went and juiced all the joy you could out of life with the amount of time you were given here.