Once a person turns a certain age, they become an adult. This age differs with culture, lifestyle and sometimes even social status but the idea remains the same. You turn XX amount of years and all of a sudden, you’re expected to “grow up,” meaning that your life is now mostly dedicated of two activities: working and complaining about working. Sure, every once in a while, you’re allowed to splurge and take a week off of work to go on a vacation with your family or splurge money on getting a new couch or TV but otherwise, the stereotypical image of adults in today's world is one of responsibility and seriousness with a rare dash of fun sprinkled in.

I’m an American 27 year old white male, meaning that I was expected to enter the “Adult World of Corporate America,” at latest, six or seven years ago. As of the writing of this post, I haven't done this yet. Unfortunately, to a lot of people, this means that I’m now “uneducated” and “immature,” based on the rules of American society and culture. I’m a slacker who just hangs out at home all day, acting like a child who has no idea what responsibility and accountability are. Sure, maybe I'll write an article every now and then or put some more work into my work-in-progress Youtube Project but other than that, I'm just another mouth to feed. I contribute absolutely nothing to society and am only allowed to be a part of it by the good graces of the government and the people around me who turn a blind eye to my complete and utter laziness.

Let me tell you a secret now. I do not believe anything that I wrote in the last two paragraphs. Sure, a lot of people do, maybe even most but I am not one of the masses. I am a free spirit and open minded individual who, by the way, happens to be intelligent and bettering himself every day. I frequent sites like TedX and Khan Academy, two online websites that allow you to take college classes for free, Duolingo, which is an easy way to learn foreign languages and love scouting Youtube for video essays on sociology and human culture.

My "splurge" is of The Criterion Collection, a never-ending series of the most important and influential films that the world has given mankind. I’m watching them for fun because, well, they're movies, but my main goal is to study them to learn about other cultures, film making techniques and industry tricks that I can potentially use when I make and/or write my own movies someday. I do a lot to keep my mind active and my creativity flowing instead of just being a sad sack who sits around like a lump doing nothing but watching Cake Wars all day (no offense if anyone reading this actually does that).

Because of Spina Bifida, my life is a strange one. I’m in a wheelchair so people tend to “understand” my supposedly sedentary and meaningless lifestyle but no one is willing to hire me because having a disabled individual in the workplace slows things down and represents a potential liability in the workplace. This may sound like an excuse but if you ask around at every place I've ever applied at, I’m absolutely positive that I’ve missed out on at least one job because of my own ineptitude during the interview, I’m just writing about how fascinating I find it that such a place exists. A place where someone is both expected to be a productive member of society but is also told that they can’t be. This is why my lifestyle is the way it is, because of this strange paradox where my country has not allowed me to grow past a certain age but still judges me for having not grown up.

I have "grown up" though, just not in the way that I feel I was expected to. I am a 27-year-old man who has no desire to get a job for somebody else just to make money. I have been spending years trying to better myself so I can one day, when the opportunity arises, finally enter society on my own terms. I will not become another victim of "disability" who throws in the towel because they can't do things the way everybody else does. I plan on doing things the way I want to do them and to be successful at some undetermined point in the future. I refuse to sit here and let my brain rot because no one expects me to amount to anything just because I have a disability.

It's a shame that I have to write that because I'd think it would be a commonplace mindset but you would be really, really surprised how many people I've met who think that I'm a loser just because I don't go out partying or think I'm too stupid to order my own meal because they see that I'm in a wheelchair.

There is a huge difference between maturity and growing up. I feel like I'm a very mature man and most of that stems from the fact that being judged has taught me not to judge other people. I could take the vengeance route and decide that I'm going to become just as judgmental as the people I've met but that's another thing I refuse to do. I am going to be mature about it, take the higher road and become better than those people ever were.

My goal, in the long run, is to accomplish something that I will be remembered for. I know that I cannot do that if I just deal with the challenges I have been given. I have to transcend them, to keep bettering myself and to prove to myself and to others that being born with a disability of any sort isn't a sentence to being thrust into obscurity.

I will be me and I will be remembered.