'What is there to look forward to?' said the snail

"What is there to look forward to?" said the snail.

 

"Christmas!" said the meerkat.

 

"I mean about growing up," said the snail.

 

"Christmas?" said the meerkat.

 

"I don't like Christmas."

 

"Birthdays?"

 

"They lose their appeal."

 

"Easter? Valentine's? Halloween?"

 

"You miss the point."

 

The meerkat frowned.

 

The snail slithered.

 

"Childhood is playing," said the snail. "Or thinking about playing. And Christmas and birthdays and that kind of stuff. As we get older, we work. School work, house work, a job. We pay bills. We fix things. We get serious... so what is there to look forward to?"

 

"Now you're depressing me."

 

"I don't mean to."

 

"But Mr Snail, doesn't every child look forward to growing up? Isn't childhood about preparing for adulthood? Dressing in your parents' clothes, pretending to be a fireman, wanting to be Mummy's Little Helper?"

 

"Not always, but go on..."

 

"Classically, I mean," said Mr Meerkat. "A child looks forward to everything about growing up."

 

"But when it arrives, is it what you had hoped?" said Mr Snail.

 

"Give a child an adult's life," said Mr Meerkat, "and it will be disappointed."

 

"Now who's being depressing?"

 

"I'm just saying."

 

The snail frowned.

 

The meerkat dithered.

 

"It's all about context," said the snail.

 

"It's all relative," said the meerkat.

 

"To who we are at the time that we are," said the snail.

 

"And who we want to be," said the meerkat.

 

"We may never be who we hoped we would be," said the snail.

 

"But we can choose to be who we are," said the meerkat.