more than meets the eye

say, in your current life, you're at a crossroads. the big five of happiness (friends, career, relationship, family, miscellaneous?) are all in disarray or in disorder, would you switch places with someone? i think children think about this alot. they dream of being somebody else completely. they're very willing to throw away their identity for another; assuming the new identity is "better."

however, as adults, are we less willing to do that? i mean, as the years pass, we become more comfortable in our own skin, we get attached to our self-conception, and we want to be ourselves at all costs. all of young adulthood is figuring out who we are so we're less apt to surrender after that sort of battle. we value our unique combination of quirks, tics, and failings.

sure we may get jealous of other people's lives, we may covet the things our peers have, we may hate our love handles that are settling in a little too easily, but mainly, we understand that the journey is just as important as the destination. we would not sell ourselves out to achieve the end goal of "success," right?

if you had a friend who was gorgeous, successful, happily married, etc, would you pull off a freaky friday and just go with it? or are we wise enough to understand that everyone has their own set of problems, however hard to fathom they may be from the outsider's perspective.

it seems like certain segments of the general public, they want out of their bodies -- and situations -- as soon as possible; the plastic surgery people, the wannabe star people. however, what's the difference between taking the straight surgical route and the windy hard work route? if you get to the same place in the end, why not get there faster?

if you are mildly happy and have some life goals in mind, would you really pass up the chance to just skip ahead a few steps, take a ride on the reading railroad, and just get there? i think we all would, right? even if it meant skipping or sloughing off parts of current selves in the process?

if identity is what we make of it, what's the difference between slowly evolving and instantaneously transforming? is it just about personal integrity at that point?