Why our lives can be so DIFFERENT

Our lifestyles are a direct reflection of various factors, including our personalities, jobs, and responsibilities at home. Parents' lives are presumably much busier and more stressful than those of the child-free. Teachers will lead much different lives than doctors, cops face a much different set of pressures than, say, couriers and chefs.

Some of us have more active social lives than our peers. While I have only three really close friends in my life, some people would need more than two hands to count all their buddies.

There are those who embrace a busy, strenuous life, and then there are people like me who prefer a more relaxed, deliberate pace. Neither is necessarily better than the other. We are each wired differently and derive stimulation from disparate sources -- the more introverted among us from reading, writing and other solitary activities, and the rest from social engagements like parties. Some of us go to church, others to sports games.

Some people love the indoors, and others get cabin fever when forced to spend too much time between four walls. I am what you would call a homebody -- I love staying home to read, write, and watch movies. Some people I know, however, are always traveling, spending more time in hotels than they do in their own home.

It should come as no surprise, then, that coordinating outings with friends and family becomes only more challenging as we get older. For example, friends who have had kids in recent years have all but vanished. I'm lucky if I can hear from them once a month -- even luckier if I can see them once a year.

It can be easy for us to criticize something about a person -- whether their choices or temperament -- when we don't know them that well, much less what their situation is like. What we should do, rather, is respect their lifestyle as much as we can, just as they should respect ours. We may disagree with how a person chooses to live -- whether sans kids or by spending all their money on expensive cars and clothing -- but that doesn't entitle us to condemn it.

People should be left free to live their lives as they want. I'm no one to judge you for the decisions you make, and you have no right to judge me for mine.

Do you agree?

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