The Tragedy Of Becoming A Young Adult
Am I an Adult? Has anything changed? Do I feel more mature?
The answer to all those three questions is no, I am not an adult now, nothing has changed from some days ago and I am not even more mature than before. So what does it mean to be 18?
Society point of view
I’m from Italy and turning 18 is seen as a great point of breaking from your childhood to your adult life.
Now you can buy alcohol and cigarettes on your own (disclaimer: don’t do those things, they bring nowhere), you can take your driving license, you end the compulsory school and you can vote for your favorite clown (I guess that’s a constant no matter where you live).
I waited for all my childhood and adolescence thinking that being an actual adult would be so cool, but now that I am I don’t even know why and for what, I would probably wish I could make time go backward.
What does it mean to be an “adult”?
When I was a little child, I always loved the idea of getting older as I saw adults and people older than me really cool.
The great problem is that I looked at them like they had answers to everything, to all the mysteries and questions of the world. I thought that with growing up I would be able to understand and answer all those questions.
Now that I grew up a little bit I finally realize how those questions have only increased. The huge problem in all this “turning 18” thing is that I feel like I’m lacking something and that I’m not ready to live my life, and that’s probably true, but when am I going to be ready? If I wait to be ready I risk waiting all my life for something that I actually want.
To not be paralyzed in front of all those thoughts the only way possible is the one of taking an action, almost without even thinking, and see how it goes facing reality.
Feeling paralyzed
Making decisions isn’t easy, maybe some decisions are easier to make, like choosing the flavor of ice cream, and others a lot more hostile, like whether to go to college or not.
At school, I had the fortune of studying the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard a danish philosopher who centered his studies around existentialism and individualism.
He writes extensively on the subject of choice, as he analyzes how the freedom that we have in making decisions only makes us worry.
In a situation in which someone has to make a choice he probably gets paralyzed, he is unable to decide. This happens because we start thinking about what we are losing by making a certain choice.
This fear of choosing is real and comes from the fact that we are human beings in a finite world, our time and our resources are finite.
Actually, the real danger is deciding not to choose, this concept is incredibly descript by the “Buridan’s donkey”. The Buridan’s Donkey is a donkey that is equally hungry and thirsty, which is standing precisely midway between a bale of hay and a bucket of water he doesn't know whether to choose hay or water he decides to not choose anything and die for both hunger and thirstiness.
Adolescence is a limbo
Like many of my fellows, I have quite no idea of what I’m going to do with my life.
That's a great problem of course but the most important thing is to actually do my best, in everything I will do.
The probability of committing a mistake is higher than the one to be perfect, but if I do my best, I will not have regrets.
The biggest obstacle is the one to overcome adolescence. Adolescence isn’t just a phase of life between 12 and 17, it doesn’t end when you hit 17, but it ends only when you decide it to end.
There are people in their 30s, 40s, etc.. that are still inside that phase because they never decided to end it and they probably didn’t even realize it.
The best way to end it is deciding it, saying to ourselves now we have to get serious about it.
Final thoughts
The biggest effect turning 18 had on me has been scaring me to death.
I realized that from now on I will be more and more alone and full of responsibilities.
I started thinking about my future and asking myself (without results :/ )what I would like to do with my life.
As I’ve already said, I think that now the best thing to do is to face reality and get feedback, acting, in reality, may help in getting on the right track.
