Congrats, Graduates! Welcome to Pretending to Be an Adult

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To all the recent and upcoming graduates: Congratulations and welcome to the world of adulthood!

Let me give you the bad news first: You might never feel like a real adult.

Now, here’s the good news: You might never feel like a real adult.

That’s right: The fact that you might never feel like a real adult is also good news. Because if you might not feel like an adult later, then it’s OK if you don’t feel like one now.

It also means you don’t need to wait around for the magical moment when you will feel like an adult to start living like an adult. You can start now.

Here are three things you don’t have to wait until you “feel like a real adult” to do:

1. Take chances.

Even as an adult, there will be problems you don’t know how to solve, situations that make you uncomfortable, and risks that make you afraid.

Trying new things is scary. At first, you might not know what you’re doing, and you might not be very good. You might feel like an imposter or fraud, scared that someone will figure out that you don’t deserve to be there.

If so, you’re in good company. Even Academy Award winners Tom Hanks and Natalie Portman and Grammy Award winner Lady Gaga say they still experience imposter syndrome. They all feel self-doubt and fear failure.

The fear doesn’t go away just because you get older or wiser or better at your job. As your adulting skills improve, the tasks often get harder. You face more pressure and more responsibility. But you also grow.

Don’t let fear stop you, but listen to what it has to say. You don’t need to have all the answers yet, but pay attention to when and what you can learn.

2. Do the work.

Adulting is hard, and there are lots of ways we can put off the hard things:

• We can put off exercising or eating healthy or developing good habits until we feel motivated.
• We can wait to start saving for retirement until we feel financially comfortable.
• We can put off having hard, honest conversations with our family or friends or partners until we feel confident that we know just what to say.
• We can put off giving up addictions until we feel ready to deal with whatever discomfort we’re avoiding in the first place.

Unfortunately, these things might not get easier with time. And some of your problems might get worse if you don’t deal with them.

Competence and confidence don’t come automatically with age. If you want to be more competent in your career and better at relationships, you have to put in the work.

Don’t put off doing the work just because you don’t feel like doing it. If you don’t feel like having that hard conversation or giving up your addiction now, you probably won’t feel like doing it when you’re 30 or 40, either.

So, you might as well do it now. Have that conversation. Start therapy. Go to a support group. Try yoga. Find a mentor. Your future self will thank you.

Being an adult is hard. If it feels hard, you just might be doing it right.

3. Be happy.

Lastly, learn how to be happy and content now.

It’s easy to put off our happiness until we achieve a big goal or reach a particular milestone. We think, “Once I get in shape or get that job or meet my soul mate or buy a house, then my life will really begin. Then I will be happy.” Harvard psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar calls this the "arrival fallacy," and it’s why we can spend our whole lives waiting to be happy.

But getting that job or making more money or getting in shape or getting married won’t give you lasting happiness. Just ask the horde of unhappy celebrities and millionaires and Olympic athletes and tech bros.

If you want to be happy in life, you need to learn how to be happy where you’re at, with what you have, and who you are. You need to learn how to be happy when life is complicated and hard because life will always be complicated and hard.

That doesn’t mean you need to obsess about being happy now or try to avoid any unpleasant emotions. Waiting until you achieve your “adult” milestones to be happy is not a good life strategy, but neither is toxic positivity. Pursuing happiness directly often leads to less happiness, a phenomenon known as the "paradox of happiness."

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Instead of focusing directly on happiness, focus on the things that actually make people happy, the most important of which is relationships. And allow yourself the full range of emotions and experiences. Live a psychologically rich life.

Take chances, do the work, and don’t force happiness—but don’t wait around for it, either.

© Jen Zamzow, PhD, 2023

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