17 Answers

  1. I have all the ideas about the concept of “adulthood” absolutely negative. We are all born small children and then just gain experience over time. Continuously. Every second. That is, there is no boundary between “child” and “adult”, you know? And there is no line beyond which you can call yourself an adult.

    As for me, this is just an illusion to point out to others how smart and experienced you are. And this illusion must be eliminated by all possible means. Some “adults” can be much more stupid than any schoolboy.�

    For me, being an adult is:

    • stop dreaming; translate everything that exists in the universe into a world of numbers and calculations (hello, “Little Prince”);

    • pretend that you know more than anyone else (read: “get smart”). You're an adult, you know better.

    • impose your opinion on those who are younger than you about how to behave in this life in order to achieve something (and it is very important to have an additional achievement card at the same time – you need to live in a collapsed communal apartment and barely pull out a third loan in a year).

  2. Yes, just like a child. There are more restrictions, less freedom, you pay for your toys yourself and they are more expensive. And so everything is the same as in childhood. Problems that at this moment seem unsolvable and monstrous, just as in childhood, quickly become unimportant and small….

  3. Being an adult… working is like spending time.

    Be an adult… And buy food for the future.

    Being an adult… well, it's finally Friday.

    Being an adult… our escape from the matrix.

    Being an adult… and show me your pussy.

    Being an adult… always delete your correspondence.

    Being an adult… of course, I enjoyed it.

    Be an adult… I'll have to clean up the stains.

    Being an adult… what a murder, hello!

    Be an adult… There's just another tadpole!

    Being an adult… yes, listening to priests is a laugh!

    Being an adult… wasn't it a sin to fuck?

    Being an adult… it's generally better to live alone.

    Being an adult… drinking, hating the country.

    Being an adult… going through life like a hedgehog.

    Being an adult… just waiting to die…

    (c) 25/17-be an adult

  4. Many people in their answers associated the concept of adulthood with rather negative emotions, so I absolutely disagree with this, so I will share my thoughts and experience on this issue.

    I felt really grown up when I moved out of my parents ' house and started living an independent life. This happened quite early, I was then 16 years old and after that all my friends and acquaintances divided for me into two categories: those like me who are already familiar with what it means to count every penny, plan their budget and diet in advance, choose for a long time in the store between cheaper cookies and what is very tasty but more expensive by 50 rubles �and other So for me, the main distinguishing features of an adult are the degree of independence and awareness of responsibility, because when you live an independent life, you always know that no one will cover you with their back and that for each of your actions you will have to bear 100% responsibility and deal with the consequences of your actions. This is very tough indeed, and I think that this is a great school of life, which it would be good to pass as early as possible. I have a lot of friends who are already over 20 and who are completely unfamiliar with the concept of independent living, when you communicate with such people, it is usually very felt. And I believe that those who are truly responsible for themselves and their actions are much more likely to achieve some concrete results in their lives. Therefore, I can say that for me the “hardships” of adult life are not a big problem, I try to make the most of new experience out of any situation, learn from my mistakes and generally think positively) There in the answers someone wrote about freedom, and although freedom is certainly a very, very relative concept, when you live independently and depend on yourself and not on your parents/spouse, etc. this is an absolutely amazing feeling, and I will not exchange it for anything.

  5. “Adult” is just a conditional name that is given to people who have lived a little longer (is the question considered from the point of view of a child?). In other words, these are people who, in most everyday situations, are less likely to get confused and take the right actions. That is, the matter is in the so-called “everyday” experience.

    The assessment of adulthood from the point of view of adults themselves is extremely subjective and cannot be objective.

    That is, trying to answer this question personally at the age of 25 either makes me doubt the correctness of the wording of the question, or introduces cognitive dissonance.�

    Or else you need to grow up 🙂

  6. An adult becomes an individual when it can perform 3 programs embedded in all living things without assistance

    1) Saving your own life

    2) Reproduction

    3) Dominance

  7. it's all very nice, of course, that people write about “not growing up” and “I don't feel like an adult”, but, people, seriously? being an adult is a big burden, because EVERY DAY you have to think: what am I going to eat today? what is it to buy that doesn't have to cook much, but doesn't have to spend money or get poisoned? what should I take to uni? soups suck there, and everything else is expensive, you need to buy or cook something in advance. damn, all the floors are covered in dust and some kind of crap, you need to wash them, but when, because you're too lazy and there's no time in the evenings, and on weekends it's too lazy. Hell, my clothes stank of smoke again, and I had to wash them again, and I'd only recently washed them. oh, it's time to do the semester, otherwise they'll still be kicked out of UNI, the deadline is in 3 weeks. don't forget to pay for the phone until the 12th, and for the dorm until the 15th. and in general, it's better to save money, otherwise there won't be a damn thing left at the end of the month like in February. Ahhh cho wear-in the morning 2 degrees, and in the afternoon 15-maybe still in sneakers will not freeze? No, hell, I'll get sick and have to skip uni, so I'll wear something warmer. God, it's hot. oh again gorged on chips, again it will be bad. damn, I can't go up the stairs to the 4th floor, I'll have to do some sports sometime, otherwise I'll drop my skates by 50. I forgot how old I was again. I can't do it again. I was swollen up again with my classmates. I have to go to bed early, or I won't get up tomorrow. why I went to bed so late, ready to fall asleep sitting up or even standing up. I need to look for a job again.�

    although I wouldn't want to be a child again.

  8. Being an adult means being free in the broadest sense of the word. But there is a caveat. Many people feel the process of growing up as a gradual transition from the routine of teenage life (school, homework, forced to wash the dishes) to the routine of adult life (not to fail a session, not to oversleep for work, to pay for insurance). A happier scenario is when growing up, a person gets rid of the stereotypical perception of the world, hammered into his head by his elders, as a rule, is engaged in self-education, studies, looks for his place, is not afraid to make mistakes, expands his horizons, achieves something important for himself and what he needs, and so on. And it does all this not out of inertia (or because someone said so), but because it has both the desire and the ability to make its own decisions. This is the freedom (and great advantage) of an adult, and you can become such an adult at the age of 14 or 16. And you can never become.

  9. In fact, you can say a lot of clever phrases, but the essence of the fact that an adult is both physiologically and psychologically different from a child and a teenager cannot be changed.�
    Personally, I think it's much easier to be an adult than a teenager. It's not so much about freedom of choice and experience as it is about physiology. It is very difficult for a teenager to make informed decisions, because the brain is still at the stage of formation. Although adolescents have much greater learning abilities and are more likely to accept new ideas, adults still act faster and often make better decisions.
    It is also easier for adults to adequately assess themselves. Personally, at the age of 15, I had a lot of complexes and terribly low self-esteem. But after 20, it all went away, I became easier to relate to myself and to others, my opinion was no longer influenced by all sorts of magazines and programs. I began to respect myself as a person.
    As for madcap people and “children in the body of an adult” – then everything is individual. It happens that a person can take responsibility at the age of 13, it happens that at 50 he can not. Here, as they say, what has grown has grown. But this does not change the fact that with age a person becomes calmer. Everyone is afraid to grow up, but in fact it's not so scary.

  10. Make informed and balanced decisions, be able to take responsibility for all your actions and your life on yourself.

    In our opinion, this is more of a philosophical question than an ordinary one. Because an adult is not an age, it is a psychological portrait of the child's antipode. Even at the age of 45, you can give up responsibility for all your decisions, wait for the situation to resolve itself (remove responsibility for your own life). And you can still move forward at the age of 16, accumulating all your strength, knowledge and skills, and making independent decisions, go to your goal, make mistakes, analyze mistakes and go further, knowing that everything depends only on ourselves.

  11. Yes, it is quite tolerable, if you are well prepared. The main thing is not to program yourself that “it will never be as good as in childhood” and stop comparing. The first years are quite a dreary time associated with a bunch of redneck problems – “getting back on your feet”, “accumulating start-up capital”, “making a career”, but if you quickly manage all this shit, then you open up prospects that you didn't have in childhood.

  12. I once got this question on ask.fm, so I'll leave the answer here.

    This… Difficult. Yes. The resistance of the environment is much higher than when you are young – it is tight and occasionally hits you in the face, sometimes so hard that it seems that the stars in your eyes will never subside. But your resistance is also much higher, so reality hits you hard, but it doesn't hurt so much anymore. Although sometimes it is so strong that you feel weak and useless again, not even as in your youth, but as in childhood itself, and you want to call for help, find a strong shoulder. But you are an adult, and being an adult means always being somewhat alone, although sometimes you can just not notice how a strong shoulder pushes you to cope on your own, and being an adult means understanding that sometimes such support is exactly what you need; sometimes. Sometimes being an adult means looking ahead and not understanding what it's like to live and survive anyway. And to be an adult is to know that sometimes you should give up and give yourself a break. This is to look at yourself and understand that it is stupid to beat a child for falling while learning to walk, and something has happened to you, after which you will have to learn to live again. Yes, being an adult means learning when to be soft on yourself and when to be hard on yourself, and becoming a better educator for yourself. This is responsibility, first of all-responsibility: for your actions, for failures, for victories (!), for thoughts and feelings; responsibility, not guilt. This is the ability to say “no”, this is the ability to treat people as they deserve, this is the ability to be yourself and sometimes show yourself only from those sides from which it is profitable, without turning into a fake. This is the ability to tell the truth when it is needed, and understanding when it is needed, and even more adult-to reveal the truth after lying before you are cornered, through fear, through shame. Show confidence without being naive. Look at others without judgment, even if with undisguised hatred. The ability to say “no” not only to people, but also to yourself. And the ability to give yourself the right to be weak, without thinking that it makes you weak. This is the ability to find your mistakes, admit your mistakes, take responsibility for your mistakes, and finally correct them. It's hard.

    But in fact, all this is for me personally. That's how being an adult means correctly setting priorities and correctly distributing money.

    Now I can add a little bit about responsibility (still, it is probably the main point): a conditional child who broke a conditional vase feels guilty before his mother, because he will be scolded. And the conditional adult feels responsible to himself, because it was his vase, and who can correct the consequences, no matter how much it is unpleasant for him, and even unpleasant for himself, just like that. In addition, there is a shadow of responsibility for natural and labor resources (for example, it was a very large vase).

    Another friend of mine once identified the “three stages of growing up men” (why men – I don't know): broken-hide, broken-admit, broken-fix. And I think it says it perfectly; he himself, it is true, was somewhere completely out of this classification, but that is a completely different story.

  13. Growing up is primarily a matter of responsibility. When you realize that you are responsible for all your decisions and actions in life, and no one will help or tell you, so everyone who could really help you with something has already passed away. Then there comes the realization of your almost cosmic loneliness and the realization that you are responsible for people who are weaker than you or depend on you for one reason or another.

  14. I know I'm not going to get into the mainstream… But still… Being an adult is no less interesting than being a child. The child moves from the egocentric model of thinking and behavior (naturally, I say very, very concisely and abbreviated) to the separation of subject and object, to the knowledge of “objective” reality, etc., which can be described in one word from ontogenesis and the obligatory stage of this process for a person – socialization. Of course, we can talk about subjective feelings: … how old do you feel? … preserving children's perception of the world and openness to the world…; smartness of all children and stupidity of parents (no luck…only it is not clear to whom: parents or children, but most likely-to everyone in this situation), etc. From my experience, I felt like an adult for the first time as a 25-year-old young, “wild”, captain, battery commander, who had everything in that life h-o-r-o-sh-o… And suddenly, by the will of fate, I found myself for a long time (four months) for the commander of a separate division (it was in the Far North)… And they fell on me: canteen, food, greenhouse, boiler room, coal delivery, delivery of schoolchildren to school (in the North, where a meter of snow falls on the roads during the night…) and back, the store, such subjects as the wives of officers, scandals on domestic, material, sexual grounds, etc., etc. That's when I felt what it was like to be an adult. Therefore, in answer to the question, I can say: being an adult means being responsible for your own happiness and for the happiness of those people “whom you have tamed”(Antoine de Saint-Exupery was already mentioned here). This is the responsibility for the result of your life and the lives of your loved ones and people who depend on you. The second quality of an adult is to get answers to your questions that you may not like, but do not hide them, but still ask and get the answers that you get… Receive, understand, accept, and change yourself… in the new “answers”, the circumstances of life… The third feature: Awareness of yourself and your life, the lives of others… the depth and versatility of this process is fantastic. The fourth characteristic, adult: the ability to negotiate, defending their interests and maintaining relationships. Again, putting in the first place, responsibility and awareness of the value of human life, its transience. This is not conformism-adaptation under the pressure of the majority, as many probably happily thought: well, here it is… we talked and wrote… No, adult contractual capacity means getting results in unfavorable conditions. Fifth and let it be the last: the awareness of the inevitability of your own death and the death of all those you love. Awareness of the finiteness and transience of all relationships, meetings, phenomena and the resulting gratitude for everything that you have at the moment… And also from my experience and my feelings: the process of growing up, especially for men, goes on all their lives, for many people it never ends and they freeze in a paranoid childhood… According to my observations, there are more and more such infantile men. According to my subjective feelings, these are the ever – increasing “moans” of my female managers (successful, adequate, self-developing, interesting, well-earning, etc.), who have simply grown exponentially in recent years: where, how to find an adult man…?

  15. Heh, so many responses from kids of all ages… I don't even want to interfere with your inter-party meeting 🙂
    But I'll write for Yulia anyway.

    It's good to be an adult if you know how. And if you don't know how, then it's bad.�

    No one gives you discounts on the fact that you are a child. �

    And no one will forgive you if you cry hard. (this is me figuratively).

    And the rest … there are so many different options.�

    You can be “like a baby” up to 50 years old, smell flowers, “be open to the world” and other charms of infantilism. But this is a rejection of development, and in general not very good.

    And you can not be afraid to grow up, and then you can open up very, very interesting opportunities.Not in terms of money (although no one bothers to earn money), but in terms of the fact that you decide for yourself how to live, and then live as you decided.

    OK, this is a responsibility, and if you decide badly, then the consequences will be painful. But if you decided well, then you will live well.
    After all, responsibility has a pleasant side, which for some reason many people forget 🙂

    There are no “how to live as an adult” courses, and in general this is not such a simple science, I more or less mastered it by the age of 35 or so. But it was worth it.

    PS
    And, by the way, if you are an adult, you can safely send those who will say that you can not dream to the forest.�
    But at the same time, you will have a chance to find out from your own experience that it is much more pleasant to realize your desires than to dream while lying on the couch.
    Actually, that's why smart adults don't really dream: dreams lose to realized desires with a crushing score.
    But this is, of course, if you learn to be a smart adult. And if not, then again you can dream to your heart's content.
    So there are no problems with dreams 🙂

  16. I think that the only important difference between an adult and a child is the awareness of death. That is why in all cultures there was such a custom as the rite of initiation, which was associated with the experience of death. Sometimes children were subjected to severe tests – standing on a pole for a day, winning hand-to-hand combat, getting honey from a nest of wild bees, surviving in the desert for a month, surviving sexual abuse-in more egalitarian communities, these were milder practices, such as those associated with taking psychoactive substances. With the help of an initiation rite, adults helped children realize the reality of death. And the subject had to prove that he was ready for existence among equals, that he realized death and learned to appreciate life.

    The problem is that mass society has removed this important element of growing up, and the functions of education have been taken over by impersonal public institutions – the family, kindergarten, school, university. The rite of initiation remained only in purely masculine communities-the army, the prison-and lost its original transcendent function. Adults don't live a real life because they don't realize they're dead. According to Herbert Marcuse, the adult reality is the total displacement of the pleasure principle in the name of the productivity principle, that is, daily hard work and a little delayed satisfaction on the weekend. Now the main function that defines an adult is work. Children do not work, but are trained in public institutions to become effective citizens in the future.�

    If you have the opportunity, never grow up and never work. Give in to your personal Peter Pan syndrome, take care of your own little planet, find your long stocking and never take it off.

  17. I don't feel like an adult. I asked my mom, and she said she felt like she was 17. I think that all “adults” are children. Even if they have aged, or they have wrinkles. They also have doubts and fears, regardless of age.

    But here's a second answer for you, if the first one didn't work out:

    Adult life is like you don't have time to finish your term paper. Only instead of a course book in general everything.

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