Sometimes I wonder if I am truly an adult. Age-wise, I am. I am legal now to buy and drink alcohol in public. Or even access those “adult contents” 😉
But sometimes I am not sure if I am the adult that I looked up to when I was a child. I just want to have a rough guidance for my own behavior, working on my self-improvement.
There are also people that are supposed to look “adult” but not “that adult.” People will agree that they are still a bit childish. So here I try to put down my thoughts on what makes someone is not an adult, based on my observations. And then derive what makes an adult, adult; by reversing them.
Attention: this is kind of subjective. Feel free to disagree and discuss!
1. Not knowing how to react in various social situations
When you’re just meeting someone new, you have to know what kind of greetings that will suit them. This is done in order to cooperate with people that you don’t even have prior knowledge of. For someone to be considered an adult, they are supposed to know how to handle it. If meeting someone new is still so terrifying that it shows to the outwards, you will be considered as non-adultlike. Well, that’s according to my experience of unable to say appropriate words for extended family I visited for recently delivering a baby. Or when in a conversation, I just asked about things on the news everytime and not able to bring the discussion further.
Relying on the same pattern of talk with everyone also will not bring the conversation further. That will show that the person does not have frequent interactions with different people already. That’s something that’s acceptable when you are a teenager (you’re only 16 afterall), but will be considered problematic once you reach 25. So an adult is supposed to successfully learn how to properly socialize during the years she has passed meeting lots of different people.
2. Getting angry that it hurts people
Being angry is okay, that’s one part of human emotions. But the way someone releases it can be seen as adult-like or not. When someone hurts other person due to her angriness, that’s non-adult. A child can only think about herself. That’s because she still depends on the others and not able to provide help to others. When we already grow up, we learn that we are not living for ourselves. Once a person realizes that she needs to fit in with the society in order to function, she will understand how detrimental unmanaged anger will be to her own record. It impedes collaboration, the heart of human connection.
I used to be angry all the time. Maybe the remnant of it is still imprinted on my face, hence my resting-bitch-face (insert sad music). I just thought that slight annoyance deserved to be angered and I didn’t think much about how it impacts others, or even me in the long term. Yeah, it’s getting better now after learning about emotional regulation. Not every annoyances deserve to be cared about.
3. Not listening to other people
It’s not about when a person comments on you for being different. It is mostly about not taking into account that you are somehow still part of the society that all we do in public will be reacted by the public. This can manifests in broad and narrow scope.
In the broad scope, this person won’t care to pay the taxes, will keep his house front a mess, and will not care if he parks his car in a way that will trouble others to pass. The behavior is not directly affecting people, but it still affects people. If every person behaves like him, then the society will be a chaotic mess.
In the narrow scope, it’s when a person is directly in touch with other person. For example, when someone is talking, non-adult person will listen only to answer back. Often, there will be misunderstanding because he does not listen to understand. He just wants himself to be heard and to makes others understand him. He won’t really care about your problem, unless it involves him and he considers it as a hassle. I used to be that dude.
4. Spending problem, eating problem, …problematic problem
This is something that pops in my mind when I imagine someone as a non-adult. Getting money and lavishly spending it without leaving enough cash for the future. As a child, if you are growing up as an average one, we are so nourished that we don’t need to consider about the future. Food? Eat that until you are fulfilled. Play? Play them until you’re tired or bored and go onto the next entertainment available.
But once responsibility seeps in, it’s not okay for an adult to only think only about the now. Responsibility comes when a person is in charge with his life from the past until the future of himself. An adult should have the capability to think the future of himself that will suffer from that bad habit. But a non adult-like person will just mingle with all the here-and-now, not caring about what future that he will bring.
Got a problem? Just let it age and do nothing about it. The future will reveal itself. This is not saying that we cannot enjoy in-the-moment joy when being an adult. It’s like managing the thin-line between enjoying it and planning to have more enjoyable in-the-moment feelings to make you more satisfied in the long run. It’s difficult.
This is maybe why I consider a kid growing up in poverty to be more likely behave as an adult. They have problems that need to be solved all the time, responsibility comes so early that they need to work at the age of 7 just to survive.
5. Not knowing what they want
This is something that is not that straight-forward. And I don’t think many adult-aged people are already aware of what they actually want. Some mask this lack by just following the herd. Don’t know how to interact with LGBTQ+ person? Just see how the norm treats them and act accordingly, not quering further to get the correct perspective. It seems like the “adult” does not know how to think for herself.
As a kid, it is normal to just mimic how the grown-ups do things. You were even encouraged to do so, meaning that you are considered more ready to join the society by adopting how to behave early. But I think, another milestone in life is knowing the essence of why the thing is how it is. So, you know whether it’s necessary to follow through or make a difference. You know what you want to do and not just following the herd.
Even though all those points before are actually aligning to the notion of an adult is following the societal norms, following the norms all the time is indicating lack of independence. It suggests that the person is not taking care of herself by just following the flow. Refusing to take responsibility of her own choice goes along with potentially blaming how the society works because all her doings are based on blindly-following it.
Conclusion
Okay, so based on those imaginary persona of how an adult is supposed not to look like, I guess we can conclude of what makes a person an adult-like.
It is: complex thinking.
It is thinking beyond himself and beyond here-and-now while being able to manage the complexities that occur. An adult should be able to regulate herself among the society and understand how she is also separate from society. An adult should also be able to manage himself in-the-now while taking into account the future that he wants to bring.
In a nutshell, it’s about being responsible to yourself in-the-now and in-the-future, being aware of where you are in society and act accordingly. And to be responsible, an adult should have the capability to think in complexities.
I can say that a person has an adult feature if they resonate with this complex-shaped tricirquare*:
Like the tricirquare, an adult should look like this complex shape.
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Footnotes:
*(lol I randomly invented the word from triangle-circle-square; don’t trust anything on the internet easily)
Initially, I wanted to put list of indicators of how an adult should look like, but I guess thinking in inverse can bring more clarity. So I elaborated how it should not like first then continuing to synthesize the main essence of being an adult from there.
This is the prior indicators on the list:
1. social skills
2. adaptability
3. emotional regulation
4. empathy
5. long-term thinking
6. independence
7. sense of responsibility
I think the complex thinking already includes those indicators.
Lasmi's Thoughts 
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