Who understands! It turns out that the whole world is pretending to be "adults"

After the Chinese New Year, in the eyes of your parents and relatives, you have "grown another year older."

But only I know in my heart that I have been "pretending to be an adult" -

The picture comes from Weibo

Although it may seem that I can handle the problems in life and work, I am actually a weak "silver-plated gun head" with a strong appearance. I still want to dodge the interpersonal relationships that I couldn't handle when I was a child, and I still feel uneasy when I encounter situations that I found difficult when I was a child...

Those skills that we thought we would naturally acquire when we grow up - knowing how to address every relative in terms of seniority, bargaining when buying things, and being able to handle people approaching us on the street with ease, are still not what we should know and are still not what we should know. However, in contrast, the people around us seem to be able to handle all kinds of interpersonal relationships with ease and are very comfortable with their roles.

At this time, it is really hard not to have some self-doubt: Am I the only one in the world who is "pretending to be an adult"?

Why do you feel like you are

"Pretending to be an adult"

Feeling that you are "pretending to be an adult" does not mean that there is something wrong with you, nor that you are immature. It lies in our definition of "adult".

For a long time, in our social context, "adults" have been closely associated with a series of positive words related to "sense of stability", such as: mature, steady, calm, rational, skilled... Even when we were children, we often heard similar words: "You will understand when you grow up", "You will be able to do it when you grow up", "It will be fine when you grow up"...

These subtle concepts have gilded the adult world, making people feel as if they can just grow up, and they will know what they should know, and the problems that are currently troubling them will be solved. On the other hand, this will also make some young people feel that if they cannot do these things in their daily lives, they have not grown up.

But this line of thinking is obviously problematic and is a trap of absolute thinking. Behind this sense of "disorder" is the worry about being "immature" and the fear of losing control of daily life.

It is irrational to think that adults should behave in a certain way, just as it is to think that children should behave in a certain way. In fact, adults also have things they are not good at, and they also have moments of hesitation, confusion, pain, and dilemma. The world of adults is not always stable and mature.

The saying "growing up happens suddenly at a certain moment" is more like a literary rhetoric. Real growth is a constantly changing process - there is development, but there may also be regression, but for most people, it is still a continuous upward process. Life is not just "not growing up" and "growing up". In other words, from birth to death, people are always growing, and every moment we grow a little bit more than the previous moment.

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From this perspective, "becoming an adult" is more like a yearning for a better life, a yearning for a state where one is always at ease, never out of control, and can face all life problems skillfully. Because everyone's real life is constantly changing, there are always new problems waiting for people to deal with, and it is normal to not be able to handle everything well. What we need to do is to accept this unstable life and ourselves who are not always at ease. But it is precisely because reality makes people feel out of control that people desire stability.

This desire makes us give the word "adult" aura and meaning when we are young, but this inherent impression becomes a kind of trouble and even self-denial when we grow up.

The feeling that you are "pretending to be an adult" or "not mature enough" may arise from this.

From feeling that I am "not mature enough"

to "I'm pretending to be an adult"

Young people are redefining their understanding of growth

Feeling that you are "pretending to be an adult" and feeling that you are "not mature enough" are similar in their basic mentality, but they are actually two completely different things. The former is a self-deprecating reconciliation, while the latter is a bit of self-denial. Young people who say "I feel like I am pretending to be an adult" are actually trying to make peace with themselves - it redefines "growth" and frees young people who are trapped in the myth of "whether they are not mature enough".

Behind "pretending to be an adult" is a kind of self-forgiveness - so what if I'm not mature enough? I am just that kind of person. The young people who said this calmed down their mentality and stopped excessively pursuing the imaginary perfect "maturity". They reaffirmed their position with the word "pretending". And this is why when everyone is pursuing their hobbies wantonly and moving away from the imaginary mature and stable standards of the adult world, they will feel better.

To some extent, "pretending to be an adult" is like the previous popular topic "the world is a makeshift team", which is a way for young people to try to redefine the world and take back the initiative in their own lives. "Makeshift team" eliminates the previous popular description of the adult world as elite, orderly, mysterious, and seamless, and reduces the tension of young people entering society in terms of mentality, making people feel that the cost of trial and error in the adult world is not that high, and then straighten their backs and muster up the courage to join it.

More importantly, as they accept and observe themselves more deeply, this generation of young people also finds that not only themselves, but also others, including their parents, are "pretending to be adults":

The picture comes from Weibo

This discovery makes people feel relieved, and their unreasonable perfectionist demands on themselves also disappear - what if they make mistakes? What if they are afraid? We are all the same, and everyone is pretending to be an adult. Young people who realize this become more calm and confident in facing life.

While trying to understand growth and accept the essence of life, young people who "pretend to be adults" have learned not to be harsh on themselves, not to blame themselves, not to demand perfection, and to quietly observe what is happening. To truly accept yourself, you start by realizing that "even if you are not good enough, so what" - even if you are not the mature and stable adult you imagined when you were a child, so what?

If you realize these and know that you are always on the path to making yourself better, that's enough.

This article is a work of Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Project

Produced by: Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology

Producer｜China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd.

Author: Likely Popular Science Creator

Reviewer: Fan Chunlei, Associate Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences