I think I finally understand what it means to be an adult.  It’s that feeling of not knowing what you are doing, but having to do it anyways. The strange thing is, is that regardless of the training you get, and how much you might prepare for it when you are emersed in the situation it always feels a bit different than what we are told. It’s a matter of then embracing that feeling and doing our best to resolve this situation.  I think that’s the difficulty sometimes, there is no guidance to follow, and when people tell you that they can’t be decided for you that’s because it’s true, how are you suppose to be able to tell someone to live if there are so many different paths to take.  I think that the lessons are how to cope with this abundant change and lack of guidance are the ones we need for the future.

There also comes a time when it feels like the curtain is being pulled back like the whole show is demystified right before your eyes. The magic seems less like magic and more like years of hard work. This isn’t a negative thing because it means that with a little bit of elbow grease and a lot of time, anything is possible. It has a way of trying to destroy the idea of magic in the world, which magic is that can make life a lot more worthwhile and enjoyable.  The other part of that is that at the time when you pull back the curtain you find this everything is built makeshift and in all sorts of different directions. No one really understands why it was made the way it was, but we keep doing it because it always been done that way.

Point being there is some sort of arbitrariness to being an adult. The question as to why something is the way it is a lot of the time comes down to what time and resources you had at the time.  This revelation is something that confuses me a bit because, on one hand, it lends itself to the incredible nature of human ingenuity to come up with ideas and workarounds for our most complex problems. On the contrary, though.. it gives some insight as to what most of our institutions may actually be, a set of good intentions and effort stacked on what we may think we know at the time.  At times decisions are driven by a purely utilitarian nature, something is done that way because it was easiest, or it was done because it conveys a sense of style or familiarity like when decisions are made because someone thought that way is best. As with our minds, we travel and create roads and inpaths to make things more robust, more secure but making our decisions less fluid in the process. We live upon the shoulders of giants, but we are also cursed to live by their decisions.

Being an adult takes a lot of work, a lot of effort to do it successfully.  Even through all its really absurd nature, it’s a challenge that either drives us to grow or defeats us.  As I grow up, I can see that I am learning and growing along the way.  Hopefully, the world doesn’t feel so arbitrary by the end of it all and that one day I can help the next generation grow and learn just like I am.