Thursday, June 18, 2015

Adulthood - a list

Some things I think are associated with growing up, in no particular order:


  • Self-knowledge and subsequently, self-kindness
  • Willingness to transcend the propensity toward black and white and live in the space between
  • Accepting losses
  • Accepting what is (which is often the same thing as losses)
  • A willingness to stare into the meaningless of existence without reaching for distraction
  • Appreciation of little things
  • Ability to tolerate boredom
  • Openness to being wrong - or to being only partially right
  • Not knowing
  • Accepting a lack of closure - of never knowing
  • Willingness to make decisions and accept the consequences
  • Showing up
  • Making basic human decency - giving up seats to old people, being kind to mothers with screaming children on airplanes, holding doors, saying thank you to customer service - the default mode
  • The ability to give time-outs to oneself, think before speaking, and not saying all the potentially terrible things one could whilst in the heat of the moment
  • Delayed gratification
  • Willingness to go it alone, if no one else is headed that direction