Even with a good career and all the “adult milestones” I don’t feel like an actual adult. I feel like I’m pretending to know what I’m doing. Anyone else experience this?
My family says your an adult the day you enjoy buying adult things. I just recently bought some good knives and glass food storage containers. I was super excited when they arrived. Video games and other fun things are exciting to buy myself but some good knives were next level.
Really all you have to do is hang out with some co-workers in their early 20s. Nothing makes you feel like an adult like sitting at the kids table, listening to their problems. Realizing you can’t relate.
Hard agree. Im 52 and most of my friends average about 30ish. Thing is I can relate, but due to extra time in the game of life, I have made a peace with the challenges younger people still fight with. Still the proximity of youth is a valuable perspective. I treasure my younger friends for this and many other reasons.
Still the proximity of youth is a valuable perspective. I treasure my younger friends for this
“Out of the mouth of babes” is a phrase that is usually associated with very young children speaking to adults, but really it means a younger generation talking to an older generation, and makes a lot of sense to listen to.
New perspectives and new ideas influence and help growth for all.
I think it’s relative.
But yes it’s valuable. Even at only 30 years old, I often learn from the 8th graders I teach.
Adults overcomplicate things and rationalize bad decisions. All it takes sometimes is one kid with a “naive” outlook to ask, “Why would you be friends with someone you don’t like?”
Then you think, yeah… Why would I?
Congratulations!
By pondering those things and asking the questions that you did, you are now officially an adult!
Nobody knows what we’re doing. And we’re all just bouncing around and slamming into experiences like a bunch of dopes.
Eventually, you’re going to bump into some folks that just sorta stick. They’re going to like some of the same things that you like and be interesting in a multitude of ways. You’re going to find that life gets a little easier when you’ve got some friends to help spread it around.
It’s life. It’s weird and serious and silly and sometimes pretty sad. Hold on tight and enjoy the ride.
That’s part of it but I think there’s a bit more than that.
Getting older I see a clear development among my acquaintances and friends. The ones I would call “real” adults, they dedicate their lives to something that gives it meaning. Some set big goals and got involved in government, some regularly volunteer, some dedicate their lives to ‘simply’ providing as best they can for their kids and family.
For me that is the mark of an adult. Not your competence or your intelligence but what drives you outside just your own desires.
The problem is the way we are told to treat adults as kids.
We go all the way through school repeatedly being told that the adults have the answers, they understand everything that we don’t, they know how to tackle the things that seem to big for us, and, most importantly, they don’t make mistakes.
So now that we’re adults, even though we cognitively know by now that it was all bullshit, it’s hard to turn that training around. We make mistakes, don’t have the answers, and sometimes struggle with parts of the world that we’d expected would make sense by now. We know that the adults before us were no different, but it’s been so long that it’s hard to internalize that we, now, are just like them.
Your imposter syndrome is programmed. It’s not your fault.
It’s not quite the same but this line of thinking reminds me of a couple of scenes from How I Met Your Mother. Marshall tells the story of when they were travelling as a family when he was a child and his dad was this beacon of heroics who could magically see through the heavy fog. Later we get the story from his dad’s perspective who tells that he couldn’t see a thing, was terrified out of his wits but just kept on going and hoped for the best while keeping a brave face for his family. I know it’s fiction but it’s such a good little story that pulls back that curtain.
I knew it was all bullshit when I learned about Santa. Been down hill ever since.
Yea, Santa is okay. He’s just preparing for the holidays right now, so you better be on your best behavior!
There is a paradox of confidence.
The people most confident in their competence tend to be the least competent in practice.
The Dunning–Kruger effect.
Self-cheerleaders tend to be morons, the most intelligent people by their nature tend to second guess their own abilities. Idiots just stroll through life taking whatever credit they can grab.
“The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that.”
-Socrates
"Throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.’
-Donald Trump
See the difference? By genuinely doubting, aka examining your abilities, you are in more competent company.
more people oughta read about and pay attention to philosophy shit is actually pretty interesting. if nothing else just to see how predictable the uneducated monkey brain is.
I’ve always considered the “why” to be the most important question for me.
In our society, the answer is almost always money, which is a means and not an end, and so western culture seems to be miserably grinding itself into the dirt, usually without ever looking up and asking what the deeper point is.
It’s really very tragic to me.
