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?
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 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 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.
No one has any idea what they’re doing.
I’m 35. I’ve got two kids. I make it up as I go along. There’s no plan, no blueprint. There’s just the day to day crap that life has for us all. I wake up, I go to work and my only real aim is to get home to my kids and partner.
Agreed. I’m 40 and I’ve reached a point where I feel like an adult. The biggest piece of that is that I understand that we’re all just making it up and figuring things out.
Imposter syndrome is also an intrinsic part of feeling like you aren’t an adult. Most of us experience this frequently - we have that feeling that everyone knows more than us and it makes us feel like we are fakes. But in reality, we just know more about ourselves and the gaps in our knowledge. We assume that they they know more than they do because we aren’t in their head and they aren’t expressing all the uncertainty and doubt hiding in there.
I think there is a pretty big difference between hearing people like you and me say “everyone is just making it up” and really internalizing that. I think internalization comes with time - you can believe something conceptually but often need to see it in practice over and over to really believe it in your bones.
There are other factors, too, which come with age and experience. Adults on the younger side are constantly running into new adult things and not knowing how to do those things is going to created this self doubt. “If I were an adult, I’d know how to do an insurance claim” or whatever. With further age, you will learn these things and have fewer of these doubts.
Copium
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.
I started feeling like an adult when I was 28. Throughout my 20s the thought came up every so often but I distinctly remember the first time it happened and I really did feel like an adult was when I was 28.
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.
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”
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.
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.
None of us know what’s going on. It’s ok.
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.
Keep it up nobody can tell.
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.
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.
