Why Are Some People Late Bloomers? Great two-part article over at http://www.laterbloomer.com/.
If you’re a late bloomer like I am, you’ll find yourself nodding in recognition of your thought patterns and behavior. “Yes, that’s what I do!” Which is always fun.
If you are not a late bloomer, but have to live/work/play with someone who is, this may bring you comfort. It’s not easy being around someone who “never gets anything done before rushing off to another topic/endeavor/hobby/whatever.” Leaves you a bit dizzy I suspect.
I think it’s interesting that late bloomers tend to be wanderers like this. This has always been my way, and trust me, it’s doesn’t get you lots of kudos in our society. We’re the kids whose report cards always say, “daydreams too much.” Guilty, yes. But I still got all the work done and made good grades, so I don’t know why the teachers were complaining.
I remember all those job announcements that wanted someone who was “detail-oriented.” There were so many in fact, that I worked that feature into my resume just so I could get work. I knew I wasn’t detail-oriented, but at that time, I thought it meant I was lazy and careless. It’s really only been in the last fifteen years or so that I figured out I was a Big Picture person. Now I know it’s why I loved the subject of ecology from the very first class in college, and why I now embrace the theory of holistic living. I have always, even as a child, looked at the world as one big interconnected THING, with every piece affecting other pieces and nothing standing alone and all of it connected to the universe too.
The idea still gives me chills.
It’s why I could see, just from looking at a globe, that all the continents fit together like a big jigsaw, and that they must have been one piece once. I was just a kid, maybe 8 years old or something. I know now that at that very time, in the early sixties, geologists were fighting tooth and nail over that very idea, because it was a brand-new theory and it went against everything geologists believed about how the earth worked. You do know which side won that argument, right?
I didn’t see it because I’m a genius. I saw it because my brain sees the Big Picture.
I’m happy being this way and I no longer apologize for it. The nice thing about being a late bloomer is that I know I’m not done yet. I still have so much to do!
Marlene Dotterer 