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?
I started too, but then the spouse started to complain that we were acting like our lives had plateaued. So I’ve decided to stop acting my age and not grow up yet.
A choice that will bless you the remainder of your days. When you grow up, your heart dies. No one really grows up anyway, some just make the sad choice to harden up and become closed to growth and new experiences.
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.
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.
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.
People who act like adults are merely pretending.
Relevant SMBC:
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.
This is put very eloquently, thanks
I knew it was all bullshit when I learned about Santa. Been down hill ever since.
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’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
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.
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
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.
Same. I sometimes really feel like I’m faking it.
We all are. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
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.
The “actual adults” we were sold as children were never real.
