There was a time in my 20s when I genuinely believed adulthood had a final form. I thought by the time I turned 30, I would somehow have unlocked this mysterious level where everything became clearer. I would have a stable career, decent savings, a home that looked put together, a proper routine, some kind of 5-year plan and, ideally, a deep understanding of who I was and what exactly I was doing with my life.
Basically, I thought adulthood would eventually feel like the ending of a movie where the music swells, the loose ends are tied up and everybody finally understands the plot.
It did not.
There were no end credits, no dramatic soundtrack and no wise old man appearing out of nowhere to tell me I had completed the quest. I simply woke up one day in my 30s and realised that I was still figuring things out, except now I have more responsibilities, more bills and significantly less patience for nonsense.
I think that was one of the funniest things to discover about growing up. When we were children, adults looked like they knew everything. They knew how to drive, how to pay bills, how to speak to other adults on the phone without panicking, where all the important documents were kept and, somehow, when the car needed servicing. They seemed so established and sure of themselves that I naturally assumed adulthood came with some sort of internal software update.
Now I am an adult, and I would very much like to know where that update is.
Your 20s are particularly strange because you are technically an adult, but you are also being asked to make huge life decisions with barely any adult experience. You graduate, start working and suddenly people want to know where you see yourself in 5 years, what career you want, whether you plan to get married, whether you want children, how much you are saving and what your long-term goals are.
At 23, I was probably still trying to figure out how long leftovers could stay in the fridge before they became a science experiment.
Yet somehow, your 20s make you feel as though everyone else has received a map and you are the only one wandering around without directions. Someone gets married. Someone buys a house. Someone moves overseas. Someone gets promoted. Someone posts a beautiful photo of their new house, complete with neutral-toned furniture and a plant that is somehow still alive. Meanwhile, you are looking at your own life wondering whether you have missed a meeting.
It feels a little like the first Avengers movie. Everyone is running around with their own problems, nobody quite knows how to work together yet and something is always on fire. Except in real life, Loki is probably financial planning and the Chitauri are emails.
I think a lot of our 20s are spent trying to become the person we think adulthood expects us to be. We chase careers because success is supposed to look a certain way. We stay in friendships because we have known people for years and convince ourselves that history automatically means compatibility. We say yes to things because saying no feels rude. We stay in relationships longer than we should because we are still learning the difference between love, attachment, familiarity and endurance.
More than anything, I think your 20s are filled with comparison. There is this constant feeling that you should be further ahead, more accomplished, more settled or more certain. Every birthday can start to feel like a progress report.
Then your 30s arrive.
I expected 30 to feel dramatic. I imagined some Gandalf-level transformation where I would suddenly wake up with wisdom, clarity and an understanding of taxes.
Instead, it mostly felt like, “Oh. We are continuing.”
And strangely, I like my 30s much more.
Not because life has suddenly become easier. In fact, adulthood seems to introduce new side quests every year. There is always something to renew, pay, book, fix, reply to, attend, remember or reschedule. You will be peacefully going about your day and suddenly realise that you need to make a medical appointment, renew your insurance, answer three messages, buy detergent and figure out why something in the house is making a noise it definitely did not make yesterday.
Frodo got Mordor. We got administration.
But something does shift in your 30s. At least it did for me. You begin caring less about looking like you have life figured out and more about whether you actually enjoy the life you are building. Things that once felt important start losing their grip on you.
In my 20s, I spent a lot more time wondering whether people were okay being around me. In my 30s, I have slowly realised that an equally important question is whether I even like being around them. That sounds simple, but it changes a lot. You start paying attention to how people make you feel rather than how hard you can work to keep them around.
Time starts feeling more valuable too. Not in the motivational-speaker sense where every second must be productive, but in the very practical sense that you simply do not want to spend your limited energy on things that repeatedly make your life heavier.
You become more aware of emotional cost. A friendship that constantly drains you has a cost. A relationship that keeps you anxious has a cost. A situation where you repeatedly have to explain yourself, defend yourself or shrink yourself just to maintain peace has a cost.
Your 20s often teach you how much you can tolerate. Your 30s begin teaching you that you do not actually have to tolerate all of it.
And that is perhaps why peace becomes so attractive as you get older.
Not the dramatic kind of peace where you disappear into the mountains and communicate only with birds. I mean ordinary peace. A quiet evening at home. Good food. A clean room. People you do not have to perform around. A job that does not follow you into your dreams. A phone that is not constantly delivering a fresh emergency.
There was a time when a completely empty weekend might have sounded boring. Now I look at an empty calendar and feel like I have won something.
The body also has opinions about ageing, which nobody properly prepares you for.
In your early 20s, you could sleep for four hours, wake up, drink something questionable, go to work and somehow continue functioning. Your body would simply participate in whatever nonsense you had planned.
By your 30s, your body becomes management.
Sleep badly one night and there will be consequences. Sit in the wrong position for too long and something starts hurting. Use the wrong pillow and suddenly your neck is filing a formal complaint.
Even going out becomes surprisingly strategic. In your 20s, someone could message you late in the evening and ask if you wanted to meet, and you might actually consider it. In your 30s, you need details. What time? Where? Who is going? Is there food? Can I sit down? What time will we be home? Is there alcohol?
Most importantly, why are we starting at 11pm?
At 11pm, I am supposed to be emotionally preparing to do absolutely nothing.
Another thing I never expected was how exciting home would become. Somewhere along the way, I became the kind of adult who can genuinely appreciate Tupperware. There was a version of me who would have found this deeply depressing. Now I see a well packed lunch and think, “Wow. Look at that. Someone has their life together.”
You start noticing things you never cared about before. A good mattress. Fresh bedsheets. A proper coffee cup. Groceries in the fridge. A house that smells nice. Finding a household item that solves one very specific problem you have had for 6 months can bring an absurd amount of satisfaction.
Maybe that is part of growing up too. Happiness becomes less dramatic.
When we are younger, we tend to imagine happiness as these huge moments: falling in love, getting the dream job, travelling somewhere beautiful or achieving something big. Those things are wonderful, of course, but adulthood slowly introduces you to smaller forms of happiness too.
Sometimes happiness is simply coming home after a long day, taking off uncomfortable clothes, eating something good and knowing nobody needs anything from you for the next few hours.
That deserves more respect than it gets.
Perhaps the biggest plot twist of adulthood, though, is realising that almost everyone is improvising. Some people are simply better at looking confident while they do it.
There is no secret handbook that everyone else received. There was no Hogwarts letter at 30 congratulating us on reaching adulthood and explaining taxes, relationships, grief, boundaries, careers and why the washing machine is suddenly leaking.
We are all learning as we go.
I think accepting that has made me much kinder towards myself. In my 20s, mistakes sometimes felt like proof that I was falling behind. A failed relationship meant I had chosen badly. A career setback meant I was not successful enough. Not knowing what came next felt terrifying because I assumed I was supposed to know.
Now I see life a little differently.
Plans change. Careers change. People change. You change. Sometimes the thing you were certain you wanted at 25 makes absolutely no sense to you at 32. Sometimes people you thought would stay forever become people you simply wish well from a distance. Sometimes life takes a direction you never planned, and years later you realise it led you somewhere you needed to go.
I do not think growing older necessarily means becoming more certain. Maybe it means becoming more comfortable with uncertainty.
You become better at asking yourself what you actually want instead of what you think you should want. You become better at choosing your battles, protecting your energy and recognising when something has run its course. You begin to understand that rest is not laziness, boundaries are not cruelty and changing your mind does not always mean you failed.
And perhaps, somewhere in all of that, adulthood becomes less about reaching some imaginary finish line and more about building a life that feels like yours.
I still do not have adulthood figured out. I still ask the ‘Adult Pro Max’ about things I probably should know. I still make decisions and wonder whether I chose correctly. I still occasionally look around and think, “How did I become the person responsible for all this?”
But I do not think there is a final level anymore.
There is no perfectly completed character arc where everything suddenly makes sense. There are just chapters. Some are brilliant. Some are painful. Some make absolutely no sense while you are living through them, and some become funny stories much later.
We are all just moving through the story, collecting experiences, losing things, finding new things, making questionable decisions and occasionally stopping long enough to realise how far we have come.
Maybe that is adulting: not having all the answers, but slowly becoming someone you trust to figure things out when the next question comes along.
And if all else fails, there is always Google or AI.
