A Decade of Happiness

Until you turn 30 there is a question that you are rarely asked with respect to your own life - that is, what was your favourite decade?  Under 30 this question tends to be more generalized to time periods usually in the not too distant past as opposed to your life in particular.  Whenever you reach your 30s however you get to a point where you have lived a life that is long enough to actually ask this question with regards to the years you have actually been alive, or more often as is the case, the decades that you lived through.

For me personally this is not a question that I can easily answer in the normal way.  I was born in 1988 so I wasn't really old enough to experience the 80s.  I grew up in the 90s but there were a few traumatic experiences mainly to do with bullying and how bad that got which, at one point led me down the path of suicide.  I am still here thankfully which has left behind a resolve that never quite leaves you.  Nevertheless the 90s also encompassed some of the happiest times of my life, but because of those darkest times I can't really pick that either.  As for the 2000s, again part of that contains yet more traumatic experiences, and again bullying played a part but not to the same extent.  The reason I won't pick the 2000s is because it is the decade that includes my high school years which for me amount to a period of Hell.

You might be concluding that I would therefore have to pick the 2010s by process of elimination, however I can't in clear conscience pick them either because of some of the events not only in my life but in the lives of many others that have happened which have tainted this decade beyond redemption.  This decade has brought with it countless deaths, not only of people I knew personally but many I did not who I admired, with 2016 being a particularly grim year when so many people I looked up to in my childhood passed away, the icons I knew and loved faded from this life, and yes, those two great political upsets of Brexit and You Know Who both came to pass which really strikes a line through this decade.  To be honest I will be glad when it is over.

For me personally in my life if I had to pick a decade that I thought was my best, or the one I loved most, it would have to be defined in an unconventional manner, rather than 10 to 10 I would define it as 2004 to 2014.  I say this because for a start, in 2004 I went to college.  Those two years were arguably the happiest years of my life so far.  I was studying something I had an interest in, and I was surrounded by people who for the very first time were there because they chose to be there and wanted to be there as opposed to being there because they had to be there - this created a fundamental shift in atmosphere that was unlike any education I had up until that point.  The college itself was also very relaxed, we were treated like adults, and for the first time I experienced a greater level of freedom and most of all, trust.  The lecturers in college bestowed trust in us as students and that level of respect put the onus of responsibility on us but not in a way that was overbearing, or punitive.  You were helped as much as you wanted help, and left to it as much as you wanted to be.  I regard every lecturer I had in college as a talented, knowledgeable, and adept teacher.  Every subject I felt I actually received an education and most importantly I felt the person teaching me knew what they were talking about - which helped me massively as I ask a lot of questions and they were met with nothing but patience and explanations in response.

The three years that followed college were the years I spent at University where despite the academic side being lacking in my view, the life experience I gained was priceless.  My time at University was worth the price for the life and the opportunities it gave me, not so much for the degree itself.  The subsequent years after graduation weren't so great but they weren't so bad either.  The final year of that 10 year period saw me gain what I regard to be my first professional job as opposed to unskilled, or temporary, or freelance work.

Finding a 10 year stretch that was free from the lowest lows is a lot harder than you would think, especially when you start to pin down the actual dates that events in your life came to pass.  I do at times wonder what the future will hold.  I tend not to dwell on that because the pessimist within me does not conjure up a lot of happiness.  If you had asked me 20 or 25 years ago what decade of my life did I think would be the best I probably wouldn't have said one so young, as is always the case I was far too eager to grow up at a time I look back on now that I am far too eager to relive.