Being an adult is basically doing annoying things with a serious face. Calling the insurance company. Asking follow-up questions you were hoping to avoid. Reading the fine print instead of trusting the smiling stranger telling you, “You’re all set.”
Somewhere along the way, plenty of us picked up a warped idea of what competent adulthood is supposed to look like, and it usually involves being polished, confident, and naturally good at things nobody actually enjoys doing.
Psychologist Alice Boyes, while writing for Psychology Today, argues that many of us misunderstand adulting from the start. We feel like it’s one grand life skill, assume other people are better at it than we are, and miss the fact that a lot of successful adult behavior looks awkward while it’s happening. Because let’s be honest, no one really knows what they’re doing.
These are some lies about being an adult that you probably believe but just aren’t true:
1. Good Adult Life looks smooth
This is one of the bigger scams. People imagine competent adults gliding through life, making savvy calls, asking smart questions, and negotiating like they were born with the knowledge of what a Roth IRA is.
Boyes points out that adulting usually involves a hidden curriculum, meaning a pile of useful knowledge nobody hands you in a neat packet. Learning that stuff can feel uncomfortable. It involves asking basic questions, making phone calls that feel awkward, and fumbling your way through unfamiliar territory. That doesn’t mean you’re bad at adult life. It means you’re doing it.
2. Adult Life is one big skill
It is most definitely not. Somebody can be brilliant at work and still avoid making a dentist appointment for six months. Someone else might be insanely organized about bills and paperwork, but terrible at handling conflict. Boyes argues that adulting is really a collection of separate skills, and most people have an uneven set of strengths and weak spots. That’s good news, because it means you can use the abilities you do have to shore up the ones that lag behind.
3. Confident adults feel fine doing all this
Just because they look calm from the outside doesn’t mean they’re having a blast getting three quotes for a heat pump or interviewing multiple therapists before picking one. Boyes makes the point that people we see as good at adulting probably find it just as uncomfortable as we would. They’re simply doing it anyway. That’s a helpful difference to keep in mind, because being good at something and feeling comfortable doing it aren’t always the same.
4. Only outgoing people are good at this stuff
An annoying number of adult tasks reward caution, attention to detail, and the willingness to ask one more question when somebody wants you to move along. That’s not exclusive to extroverts. Boyes notes that conscientiousness, experience, and even natural hesitancy can help people handle real-world situations well, especially when the goal is protecting oneself from mistakes, bad deals, or questionable advice.
5. Everyone else already knows what you know
Lots of adulthood runs on tips people learned the hard way and then never think to mention. Boyes argues that we underestimate how much useful knowledge we’re carrying around, from insurance tricks to negotiation habits to the tiny, boring details that save money and trouble. Sharing what you know can help someone else, and hearing what they know can save you from learning everything the expensive way.
Being an adult often means leaning on your strengths while doing things that still feel awkward, annoying, or mildly intimidating. Welcome to the club.
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