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In 1781, at age 14, John Quincy Adams (the son of John Adams, second
president of the United States, and himself the sixth president) was
sent to Russia as a private secretary and French interpreter for the
U.S. minister to the Russian court.
In 1782, at age 15, he returned to Paris, as a secretary to the commission
negotiating with the British for the end of the American Revolutionary
War.
Skilled in several languages, with a keen sense of diplomacy, John Quincy was quite the prodigy. He would become the secretary of state under James Monroe before being elected as president of the United States. After one term as president, he served nine consecutive terms in the House of Representatives.
It reminds me of a joke about George Washington. A stern father chastised his son by explaining that when George was a young boy at his son's age, he was a proficient surveyor. The son shot back, "But when he was your age, he was the president of the United States!"
It is easy to look back and see the missed opportunities of our lives and compare ourselves with others. The challenge when you are still young is to maximize the opportunities that come your way before they pass.
The world is an adventure
A good way to think about life is to see it as a type of frontier. In early American history, the opportunities were everywhere if you had the desire, vision and means to pursue them. Cities grew from intersections along river crossings and mountain paths. Necessity was the mother of invention and urgent needs provoked clever solutions. Today you might think there is nothing new to do with your life, and you could settle for a rut or routine.
Everyone has the same 24-hour day, and most people in the Western world today have the means and opportunities to do just about anything one can imagine. Perhaps the problem is that we don't imagine much. Instead we become distracted by the array of diversions that entertain us. I heard a frustrated father comment that it's hard for parents to compete for their children's attention, working against stunning music videos and pulse-pounding video games that are so real they get lost in the fantasy.
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