Does anyone feel like an actual adult?
Does anyone feel like an actual adult?
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?
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.
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.
My answer is still the same as this question was asked last time. I still feel no different than my teenage self until I meet some actual teenagers, and and there is nothing that makes me feel more like an adult than when I realize they are just kids, immature and wide-eyed, and the me of now is actually nothing like the teenage me I still think I am.
Being an adult means having grown-up responsibilities, you can no longer be the selfish, carefree child you used to be when there are people depending on you in this cruel, cynical world. Yet in spite of all this, you don't have to give it all up, there should still be times where you can take a break from being an adult, and with the life experiences you didn't have before, rediscover that sense of wonder, hope, and sincerity that you thought you've lost in a brand new light.
And that's what Barbie was really about.
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.
Yes and No. 48.
There was never a horizon or dividing line I crossed between youth and adult. It just happened.
I'm still the same person I was when I was 10/20/30/40. Still like cool things, still confused about why we're all here.
Other than my body getting real creaky and doing all kinds of weird old things, the only real difference between youth and adult is the realization that this very thread addresses. We're all just making it up as we go. There's no such thing as "adult". There's no Council of Super-Smart People running the world.
The only thing that makes you an adult is the realization that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. That you have to be the super-smart person running things.
Not once in my 45 years.
As far as I can tell:
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age <16: "Oh boy, I can't wait to be an adult and do whatever I want!"
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age 16-19: "Look at me! I'm an adult! I'm the adultiest adult that ever adulted!! I reject all that is childish and embrace all that is totally-grown-up! Middle ground is for losers! I need everyone to know how ADULT I am and approve of it!!"
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around 20-ish: "....fuck. I'm an adult. I have responsibilities. I have to do taxes. Why does everything cost money?"
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25+: "I have legit no idea what being an adult is supposed to be like, but I'll figure it out one day ... I hope. Also my back hurts and I have a favorite spoon and lost the lid of 2/3 of my tupperware."
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45+: "I'm an adult. I can do whatever TF I want. Ohh you want to convince me that videogames and cartoons are "too childish" for someone my age? Go ahead and sue me, lol."
I'm nearing that last stage and I honestly care less and less about what being an adult is supposed to be like. The world is already a shitty enough place without ruining your own fun on arbitrary grounds like stuff being "too childish for your age" or the pressure to have found your purpose in life by a random age. I stopped trying to find "my calling" or a bigger meaning in life and just enjoy the ride instead. Not everyone is predestined to achieve some groundbreaking milestone in history. Maybe my purpose in life has always been to be that weird funny uncle that cracks insufferable puns at the worst times but actually listens to problems of loved ones, no matter how trivial they may seem. Maybe just winging it without actually knowing what the end result will be ... is perfectly fine. It is okay to not know everything. It is okay to have silly little hobbies. It is okay to be a bit awkward. And it is okay to feel a bit lost sometimes. Adults are just old children with a driving permit.
Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.
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Learning to fake it is part of growing up. Eventually you forget you're faking.
You become an adult the day you realise that what everyone else was doing all along.
Special milestone the day somebody refers to you within earshot as "that mister", the fabled stranger-based punishment of exasperated mothers everywhere.
The “actual adults” we were sold as children were never real.
Me (41yo) asked my dad (74yo) Me: Dad, when does that adult thing of knowing what you are doing kicks in? Dad: When I find out, I will let you know.
Its not just you, everyone waking up , going to work is pretending. Thats what adult life looks like. You pretend to keep your boss happy, society happy and people around you happy.
I'm turning 40, I have 2 kids, and my self-image hasn't changed since high-school. I have to consciously think about it to realize that other people see an adult when looking at me. Like my first reaction when I do something "grown-up" is to woder if people are impressed by a kid acting so mature, and then I realize that I'm not a kid anymore.
Keep it up nobody can tell.
Just actually hang around kids that are the actual age you "feel". You'll realize some differences pretty quickly. Also, I have this idea that what really "ages" us is all the loss we accumulate. The longer you live, the more death comes for your loved ones.
I think we're all taking the "fake it 'till you make it" approach to some extent. I know I am. There is no script to follow.
Remember that part of being an adult is getting to decide what "adult" means.
At about 24 years old I finally started feeling like an actual adult. Living alone, taking care of my things and my pets, having a stable relationship. Part of growing up is just accepting that there's some of parts of you that will never grow up, I'm still a goofball and that's just part of me.
I don't really feel any different in my 40s, I've just changed my perception of what an adult is.
People glorify adulting as some kind of ultimate maturity for ones self. It is not that. Adulting is predicting what can and won't be your life. Surviving better each day. While also keeping after yourself in a healthy manner.
We are always growing until we die. Adulting is accepting what can be and what can't be and living with yourself.
Perceive reality as it is and accept the successes and failures along the way.
One day you will see people for what they are and are not. That day your awareness of the world will change.
I've noticed it has become easier to see liers as I've gotten older and mentally ill people.
I find all of this talk about being an adult weird. It doesn't matter how old you are. What matters is that you can take care of yourself.
I suppose it depends how you think of being an adult.
No-one is going to save me. I am huddling with my family for warmth and hoping we all make it to death without disaster striking. If disaster strikes, our survival depends on us and people will be looking to me to take charge.
That sounds like adulthood to me.
What finally made me feel like an adult was raising a teenager. Any last semblance of youthful energy and optimism I had was destroyed between 15 and 18 years old.
Thinking of yourself as an "adult" is just a mental construct that was embedded into most people at a young age. When we were kids, we saw adults as these elevated beings that had transcended childhood and became something more. When you grow up, you realize you're still the same person but with more responsibilities. It's not the paradigm shift we thought it would be as kids, and that's okay. I'm almost 40 and my idea of a perfect saturday is sleeping until 11am, waking up with a nice blunt and coffee on the patio, making some cheerios and watching cartoons until mid afternoon. Then spending the rest of the day playing video games or board games with friends. Adult life is just life, with extra steps.
I see adulthood as a gradual undoing of the damage that the process of going through childhood and "growing up" does to us. Not necessarily from any specific trauma, but just that almost all of us will reach our 20s and beyond with quirks and mental health issues just by nature of a very complex and at times traumatic world. And an ideal adulthood is the ability to eventually move beyond merely coping but regaining some of the lost joy and innocence of childhood but with the increased responsibility of the self and others that comes with adulthood.
Congratulations, that worry is you being an adult
Early 20's. I work with a lot of people nearly double my age who call me a kid (endearingly and lovingly if I may add). Make decent money and have a great partner.
I pay taxes and pay bills, I have a car and I go to work everyday of the work week. I tend to ask myself "is this it? This is what I wanted so much as a kid? This is being a grown up?"
I mean I can eat ice cream whenever I want I guess, but I dread when the actual adulting comes along. Seriously, does anyone else know when the adulting comes? Is it bad?
Apologies for the rambling, but the title question always hits with me as of late. Thanks.
In my experience, pretending you know what you're doing is what being an adult is.
School/experience is getting enough background to fake it without blowing anyone up in the process.
Being a good adult is taking responsibility for the things you did without knowing what you were doing.
What? You don't get the instruction manual?
Same here, 56M. Realised a long time ago that everyone's just figuring it out as they go along, and those stronger personalities that project "right" and "wrong" are just as much pretending as the rest of us.
I do. It happened somewhere in my mid-late 30s. The two main contributing factors have been:
- Years of therapy so that I'm able to have my shit together
- Having a kid so I've got a reason to have my shit together
Order of those two is very important!
Good for you.
You might, once the back pain sets in. Or other old people's aches and pains?
What would you expect it to feel like? What's keeping you from that?
I figure it's just different responsibilities.. if I didnt have kids I'd be doing more of what I want to do (like fireworks and motorcycling).I had to put that on pause for 12 years or so, and just now I'm starting to do more for me. It was a joint decision that I would be a present dad rather than career focussed. And to be honest it's been great being able to switch off work and enjoy my personal time. Family circumstances have changed and ironically I've had to be even more present but with COVID changing the work force expectations,at least in my business, to be more flexible, that it all works.
I still feel 16 at heart and think I can get out of a chair really easily, but I can't..my joints are stiffening and that really sucks.
Now you know why southern men call each other "old boy"
My brother told me the first time he truly felt like an adult was when he had to go shopping for a washing machine.
I think for me it was when I suffered a back injury whilst sleeping.
I don’t feel like an actual adult. I feel like I’m pretending to know what I’m doing.
That's the first step. The next step is looking back on your "mundane" adult accomplishments:
- Finding and negotiating your housing
- Making sure you (and possibly your family) are maintaining basic nutrition
- Managing your finances well enough that the first two are not in imminent danger
- Navigating though various "adult" BS such as contacting a bank or merchant about a process or payment in error, and chasing it through various channels until its resolved.
- Identifying your next need and the starting point for how to go about getting it resolved.
Then you glance to your left and your right and see some of your peers doing magically better, but more importantly you see a chunk of your peers not able to accomplish anything in the list above. You see what you now recognize is your growth and maturing and their lack of it.
The second step is to realize that you are indeed an adult. This is what being an adult is. The situations change, the difficulty in scope or scale increases, but its variations on what you've done before and the second, third, fourth...hundredth iteration aren't as hard as your first attempt in your early adulthood.
You realize that there isn't a single defining threshold you crossed at some point in the past where you went from "kid" to "adult". You also realize that some people make it all the way into their 60s and 70s without ever becoming an adult.
Growing old is mandatory, growing up optional.
I'm sitting here procrastinating doing books with stacks of paperwork for the business spread all over the table, but all the bills are paid and I'm in the black so yeah, a little bit.
Definitely not. I still feel like an immature 20 year old trapped in an older body.
You'll feel like an actual adult when you stop chasing after what you think society expects a successful adult to be.
Not only will that mean you yourself have the self-confidence of an adult and the adult ability to set one's own milestones, but modern day society is pretty shallow and immature and not really design for people to be self-driven and independent (look at celebrity culture, look at how politics use Tribalism so that people react very much like they do with sports tribalism were the stakes are nowhere near as high, look at consumer society powered by marketing using manipulation strategies taken from Psychology).
If you're lucky it might happen when you have your middle life crysis (though many, maybe most, just seem to become infantilised) or as result of some life-changing event.
We all just have to do stuff all the time. That's it. Welcome.
I feel like I'm pretending to know what I'm doing.
No one knows what they're doing but it's provocative.
But seriously though, no one knows what we're doing. As kids, we see adults and think they know what they're doing but they're only pretending. A lot of us also still act immature. We are still children in some form or another.
I feel like an adult, but only because my experience has forced me to change my idea of what an adult is. Adults are simply people who are legally defined that way and there are no real superpowers that come with it. Just societal expectations which can rightly or wrongly line up with life experience. I wouldn't expect a 7 year old to drive or do taxes but I can do those things because a) I have to, and b) I have the needed experience.
Also humans are smarter than other animals but we're still dumb on a cosmic scale. That's why so many people have imposter syndrome about adulthood
I think my wife does. She has to deal with 3 kids and a man child.
Oh, I didn't make my bed and the world didn't explode. Seriously, does anyone clean their house to the extreme your parents did? We only do if someone is coming over.
We reach adult status when we do all the necessary responsible things for survival without having someone to tell us what we need to do and how to do it.
Yes, I feel like an adult.
The misconception though is that somehow you just “gain” wisdom and adult smarts and whatever. That’s all bullshit. I don’t feel like a different person than I did at 17, but I know I’m not a child, I know society expects me to be accountable for my own actions. I know I have a whole different set of responsibilities than I had as a teenager.
Buying my own Costco membership was the first moment I truly felt like an adult.
The only thing you are is you. You are not "something". You will always just feel like you.
Everyone else can be adults or kids or whatever. But you will just be you.
Either I've always been an adult, or I've never been an adult. Honestly not sure which.
Nope. Not at all. I have just a vague Idea what Im doing.
Feel like? Maybe not. Accepted? Maybe.
More often than not now, I find myself having to be the adult in the room. My father recently died, and while my parents both have wills sorted, they didn't have other things like power of attorney sorted, or a real discussion of what his funeral arrangements he would like. It was not a sudden death. That was a turning point for me.
I guess that's where I'm at, I've accepted I'm an adult. I'm losing backstops, but also becoming other people's backstop.
Same and nope I do not feel like an adult
Relevant SMBC:
Idk, I feel like an adult. That's not to say I have everything figured out, but I've thought a lot about who I want to be, have done (and continue to do) a lot to get closer to being that person and keep growing, and I've successfully navigated a variety of situations and feel confident in my ability to handle unexpected circumstances going forward. I also have a lot of autonomy and when I want something I can usually figure it out or make it happen
Not trying to brag, this probably comes across that way but idk how else to put it 😅
Sometimes when I'm hanging my laundry. God, that makes me feels so adulty
Hell no. I'm 29 with my own house, six-figure job, and 3 cars and I don't feel like an adult lol. But also no kids nor desire to have kids will do that
Yes. I'm 43, married to my college sweetheart, we have three boys, a house in the suburbs, own a business, take care of my family, and am responsible for everything. Becoming completely independent of any outside help is part of it. Having others that depend on you to handle anything that comes along is the next part. Becoming an adult isn't a switch, it's a gradient. Having kids definitely catapults you along, though. I don't know how grown up I would be right now if I were unmarried and childless, but I'm guessing less so. Above all else, becoming responsible for an entire family is the thing that did it for me, and even that was a gradient.
Of course not. No one on earth is really an adult. We do not do things correctly here to foster adulthood, being in the service of "corporations" rather than other actual people. Money - dependence upon money - is the reason.
Here's an example. I brought my car in for service today. In the car service game, they have broken the concept of "service" into itemizable, chargeable subtasks. This is not adult, natural human behaviour, this is marketing. The person you speak to is paid to upsell you on items which should be included in the concept of "getting your car serviced" - wheel alignment, fluids etc. The suggestion this makes is that if you do not pay two or three times for the same job, they will do the work improperly or not at all. We have accepted this behaviour as normal, because it's common and we can't do anything about it, but it's still fundamentally wrong and our lives are absolutely full of insulting, greedy, corporate-mandated childish shit like this. This is done not because the business isn't taking in enough money to be viable, but just to enrich the parasite whom is the head of the organization, and to be able to fund third party parasites like lawyers and the marketing department, out of your pocket.
The falseness, the fakeness that is part of every interaction, is the childishness. The reason for that childishness is money. Money is a child's toy, greed is a childish trait, and "Western" culture which has now taken over the world does everything in its power to hamper the development of grown-up personality.
To the haters, no, I make six figures, I'm not poor, but you are being childish again.
Imposter syndrome
Sure. I mean, I am a adult. I never thought adults had things figured out when I was a kid either, seemed pretty obvious they were just trying their best with what they had to work with.
Nope.
Still just feel like a kid, with extra responsibilities, while raising my own kids. Guess sometime around 50 or so i'll start feeling like an "adult"
Although, at least I call myself a dumbass, after doing something stupid, or wasting money on crap.
If I think about it, yeah. I have a good career, a wife, a cat, a house. It just happened so gradually that I didn't notice it while it was happening.
Yes but it is not get a job or have a kid: it is because i have sustained previously unimaginable loss yet keep going. that is the feeling of adult to me.
Yeah kinda. To me being a kid is all about the feeling of things not being up to you, you don't make the real decisions and the ones you do get to make are inconsequential. The past doesn't weigh on you and the future is a wide open mystery. Doesn't feel like that anymore.
Every time I have to confiscate the book my kid is reading after lights out I feel like an adult.
The rest of the time... fuck no.
(They get it back in the morning -- I'm not a monster!)
Only when I land slightly wrong or too hard and think my knees are about to explode
Oh, and the forced grunt every time I stand up
Yeah. Life is almost exclusively chores and dealing with bureaucracy. Can't get much more adult than that.
People who act like adults are merely pretending.
There are tasks and chores my parents used to do on my behalf that I now do myself, like making money, paying taxes, handling health insurance, etc. I guess those make me feel like an adult.
But then there are milestones I thought I would have hit by now that I have not, mainly concerning family life. No kids, no partner, nobody to take care of but myself. If I wanna go out and party, or stay in and play video games all weekend, there's not really much to stop me. That makes me feel immature.
Yeah, I do. I got bills to pay, mouths to feed, a job to go to, joints that hurt…yep. I event grunt when I get up.
I guess I was never under the impression that any adult actually knew what they were doing, even when I was younger, so I wasn’t surprised that I am still constantly improvising. This is the natural state of living. You’re either learning and improving, or you’re becoming obsolete and decaying. This is true whether or not you’re an adult.
I feel like I'm pretending to know what I'm doing.
I guess that explains the observation. As kids, we're fooled by the pretenders. So we grow up with this expectation.
I feel like an actual adult when I achieve milestones of my own character.
Any kid can be dragged through the external milestones of an adult life. But a kid cannot experience the milestones of adult character development, because those are the things that define adulthood.
For example yesterday toward the end of my work day, I had the opportunity to just coast through the last hour. It’s a skill I’ve developed, so I know I can do it. But instead I pushed myself to get more done and keep what promises I could to my customers, despite not feeling like it. That is the kind of thing that makes me feel like an adult. No amount of having experienced relationships, earning, owning, or exposure to death and suffering does it to me. But pushing myself to fulfill my duty despite not feeling like it, makes me feel like an actual adult.
I make okay money in my forties, was able to put a large some down on a reasonable new car to keep monthly payments low. Also my back hurts if I sit too long. So, yes.
I'm middle aged and play video games and even do a lot of stuff like HTB as if I'm 20 about to embark on a new career path at any minute
All, the, fucking, time.
Depends on the point of view I'd say.
- I pay bills
- I deal with requirements and assumptions the society puts on me as a grown-up citizen who brings better tomorrow closer through hard work
- I deal with hardships of my life through thinking, writing about them, cooperation, diplomacy, listening and discussing even difficult topics - also within my relationships
- I embrace the consequences that my actions may bring
- I try to rationalize my thoughts of the world
- i try to be a decent example to kids and other folks
.
- I'm goofy, playful and childlike (you should see my behavior with my girlfriend)!
- I enjoy small, "nonsense" things and they cheer me easily up
- I'm generally relaxed of life
- I get easily (over-)excited
- I am an energetic person
- People assume I'm younger via my habitus
.
So I guess I am and am not, in certain ways.
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.
If it wasn’t for my passport - and some aches and pains - I’d still think I’m 15.
Yeah, but only because my joints hurt if I do anything remotely exertion related. It's less that I feel like an adult, more like I feel old.
I'm in my 40s and married with a kid and I'll be the first to admit that I'm winging it. We're all just that same little kid we were but in an adult body trying to figure out the world. I did get called sir by a younger co-worker and I made them swear to never say it again. Just call me dude or something lol
I stopped getting older after graduating college.
I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing but I do feel like an adult. The two are a bit separate in my head.
I am constantly doing things that make me feel more adult. Like at some point I will have done enough of these things to be an actual adult.
I feel like an adult. I'm in my 30s. But i got to make my own definition of adult. Really it's not so much not feeling like an adult, it's realizing none of the adults really know what they are doing.
- Not even a little bit.
Define Adult.
My personal definition is "A child with responsibilities"
This means you don't have to feel like an adult to be one.
If you really look past the facade of humanity, that's really all we are.
And my definition of a teenager is really just "A hormonal child"
Lastly a manchild is "An adult that shirks and refuses to act like he has responsibilities, while also whining about them"
It's like the horizon of ignorance in science. The more you know, the more you know you don't know.
Funnily enough, I do feel like an adult, mostly because I've been aware enough for long enough that everyone else is making it up as they go, that I can sense when people are on their bullshit and navigate it pretty effectively.
Also I'm making a lot of decisions that will hopefully insulate me from the consequences of my inevitable failure, but I hold no delusions that the safety net will ever be perfect or even good, or that some arbitrary amount of austerity would have bought me a house at this point, so I don't starve myself of the little pleasures in the moment - today is the rainy day. I use my PTO, I get a little treat every once in a while, and I make myself as comfortable as I can. My life satisfaction has increased drastically with that in mind.
I don't. I'm 29 but I feel like I'm 18~19. Doesn't help that I still look like I'm in my early/mid-20s, so I can't even look in the mirror and remember my age.
Solid NO, I'm over 35 too...
I sure don't, constantly feel like I'm driving a car with feet that don't touch the pedals. Luckily I've got one hell of a community around me, and although the town's nickname is Shitshow USA we seem to make it work.
I work in a school. I mostly talk like one and people bought it. The kids...they know...
I'm not even taking pretending that seriously: if I got busted as a swindle of an adult, I would be like it be like that sometimes
i stopped growing at around 24 years of age
I was challenged about this subject not too long ago and thought a lot about how do I define adult? In my analysis and perspective, what adult really means in a meaningful applicable way is:
Being an adult is being in control of your life
I think that is why the feeling of the title is so widely experienced. Fortunately, the basis for this is not you, per se, it's how we got here as a collective. In my estimation we are encouraged not to be in charge of our own lives.
There is bravery in facing ugly truths and thus begets for seed for growing. It is actually neccessay. Hang in there, perservere, you are magical!
"Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with"
"Adversity builds muscle, adversity builds strength. Adversity, it turns out, is preparation for success"
I think the issue is people equate "feeling adult" with feeling confident, responsible, agential, nomic, or otherwise whole. When in reality the only assurance is that you'll get older.
As an ADHD-riddled depressed mess who can hardly function at all? No.
I sort of feel like an adult, in that I have a job I care about, a mortgage, a partner, responsibilities. I think the change happened when I lost my entire safety net when my parents passed away. If I don't take care of myself, it's right back to the streets. That kind of looming danger makes a person feel "grown up" pretty quick.
But at the same time, I don't feel adult enough to want to start a family or have any optional responsibilities. I just get through the grind to feel stable and play videogames, which is probably a childish mindset.
Mid 30s for reference.
The mythical "adult" we were told about doesn't exist. Never did.
Permanently Deleted
I suspect that feeling like an adult is what happens when you start to be less creative over time and get used to it.
