Dear LPG, 

I read with interest what CC had to say about the omission of the word ‘like’ from the answer to a question that we so often ask young children, and how it can completely change the meaning of any answer that they might give (►►►).   

She wrote about the aspirations of her really young granddaughter who said that she wanted to be a particular person when she grows up, rather than expressing a desire to be like that person. CC commented on the difference.

As she said, most of us grow out of it but so many of us show a lot of discontentment with our lives as we get older without remembering what we have really achieved.  After that it is so easy to hear them wishing that they had the qualities of some person who has lived a relatively public life, and how being like that person would have made them see their own life as so much better?

We are the first generation where more people than ever have been able to know so much more about the people we are trying to be like.  Both their public and much more of the private aspects of celebrities’ lives are becoming more accessible both via television and social media.  It seems to me that everybody is willing to allow so much more of their personal lives to be exposed for all to know about. 

In spite of that, human nature seems to remember the good bits and not so much the bad aspects of the lives of those we see as inspiring, while we often see ourselves the other way round, focussing on the more negative.

I think that every now and then we need to remember that all those more public people have private lives with challenging aspects too.  I have my doubts about just how many of their serious failures they will let us see, in spite of all the things that they admit to on the late-night television chat shows. 

We need to factor ourselves in to our lives much more than so many of us appear to, because I am hoping that most of us are seeing what has been achieved on a personal level when we look at our role models, which is where the “being” and “like” aspect of aspirations comes from.

I have had so many conversations with friends, old and young, who have told me that they feel that they have wasted so much of their lives, but I nearly always tell them that they are not looking back properly. 

Just think about how many times you have said something to someone which has helped them achieve their successes, or some really small thing that you have done without thinking which has really changed another life for the better.  Have you ever given £1 to someone you passed begging on the street or cheered someone up with a quick encouraging throw-away comment while sitting next to them on the train?  Have you ever spent an hour or two on the phone in the early hours with a friend who can’t sleep?

It’s not going to go down in history, but every life is meaningful and as unique as every other life.  Aspire to be more like yourself…

MC, Brockley