One winter, when I walked into a seasonal retail job, there stood my manager. She was a college graduate with a bachelor in business, but failed to manage the business. Then she spoke to me with a straight face about what was worrying her. Gleaming at me, she uttered that her best friend is getting married before she is and how she hates her. A few moments passed, and something dawned on me: some people are more capable than others. I was fifteen, and she was twenty-eight, and I had sympathy for this person. It was all too much for her; at the wedding, her best friend was not responding to her text immediately! The total culmination of change was horrific, and she was not prepared to learn how to be “Adulting!” The lost art of being an adult is a real one.

To further this observation, she was a bad manager; however, I really liked her personally. On the same day, she ran up to me and asked me what is thirty-two plus eighteen was. This great gal can’t be measured the same as me or you. Along the way through life, she forgot that she had to learn the life skill of staying above water. 

During her life, she was exposed to a lot of things, even more than me, but something was lost on her. The idea that she traveled often or read all of those books she never once thought to remember anything. Nor was she able to apply anything that she ever experienced as a practical answer to a question or problem. If not years or miles traveled, then what documentation? I pose a meaningful answer experience and a good character as the anecdote to these issues.

What comes with this solution?

Is the ability to appraise what matters. Let me tell you another small story from when I was in my early twenties. I was living in a rural town for a bit, and there were some people that I was introduced to by someone else I barely knew, and the occasion was a party. I’m the odd one out here, and these are complete strangers. Well, the night went on, and we stood by a bonfire, and with the assistance of liquor, they dropped their masks. 

The lack of socialization showed and the childishness of adults shined through; then they started to talk about outlandish hopes and dreams. The differences between these people were extreme and showed the naivety of how the world actually worked. More so, these very sheltered people who talked about freedom and liberty thought that the world ran on fairy dust.

These grown men and women bickered and gossiped like schoolgirls. One man with a dip of chew in his mouth proclaimed he couldn’t believe he didn’t get promoted. He thought a manager’s pay would be enough to afford a house with him and his girlfriend. Then a unicorn reared its ugly head, and a woman interrupted him and made her way to me.

An older woman with no life experience

She walked up to me and asked a question that left me in shock. While she reached her hand down and pointed at my crotch, She stuttered while the light of the fire flickered on her face. “Are you going to keep it?” I was speechless and collected my breath, then I remembered: I am probably the first trans person they have ever encountered. It was as if I were an alien making first contact with humans, and they didn’t know what’s appropriate behavior.

After a few moments of talking to this intoxicated, grown woman, who was 32, I came to the realization that I shouldn’t be bent out of shape over this. Her legs were shaky like a newborn fawn, and she was freshly out of a marriage. it was her first love her high school sweetheart of 13 years; she never went out and saw the world. Talking to this person was like talking to a seventeen-year-old, and something hit me. I have a nephew who is half her age. If he started to date her, I would be worried that he would be taking advantage of her. This person had zero life experience. I don’t think anyone would be able to have a fair enough relationship with her.

What makes it worse is her age; she is only going to be meeting people with more life experience than her. There won’t be very naive people at her age who are easily available. I even worried that just from meeting this person, she was going to offend someone. I don’t think what she did to me, which was sexual harassment, was even in bad faith. However, the lost art of being an adult was needed. By that age, she needed to already know how to communicate effectively

There is only so much that you need to learn.

Getting a good education and job, being able to make an income, and supporting yourself and the ones you love through hard work.

Being able to balance a ledger and pay bills and insurance included understanding how interest rates work and the cost of money itself. Then it is off to building credit and saving for your retirement.

Lastly, but most importantly, is being able to navigate social interaction with all sorts of people. Being diplomatic and non-abrasive is the end all be all. Having the emotional intelligence to understand other people’s intentions is an imperative.

No one is perfect.

However, people need to be able to carry themselves on their own. If you find yourself in the shoes of a stay-at-home spouse with no job experience, Then you argue over not wanting to have kids, and he leaves you 13 years later you might have serious issues. My suggestion is to make mistakes if you have to and learn a few things. Don’t double and triple down over something, and one day wake up and realize I’m middle-aged and act like a kid. 

If you stumble around making mistakes and learning how to do basic things, that’s all it really takes. If you have done that, then you should give yourself a pat on the back; a lot of people haven’t. Another special thing is that you don’t have to be number one. There are enough tryhards out there who are miserable; just work hard, and people will think highly of you.

Learning to focus, learning from mistakes, and admitting when you are wrong are very adult things. Sadly, these aren’t readily available and have to be practiced. I believe we stall out adolescence when it should be a short duration. There are only so many issues and problems to tackle; however, the skill ceiling can be incredibly high, and the bar of entry is really low. 

Abridged Adolescence

This is what prolonged adolescence shouldn’t mean an extension of childhood but a leniency in adulthood. Taking responsibility and allowing others to make a mistake when they can afford to as an adolescent. A massive sign that you or your own child is taking this the reception of ad-hoc solutions.

The hard thing in life is that we can only ever take approximations on the external matter of adulthood. So we are in a fickle situation where not only are we not perfect, but the skills that are needed aren’t fully specified. So leniency is needed. However, in all situations, luck favors the prepared. So it is practicing what is valuable and, when it comes to it, finding ad hoc when nothing else fits.