When am I an adult?

I'm not going to lie, writing up my first blog post took an incredibly larger amount of time than I originally imagined. It can be nerve-racking to write thoughts down and wonder if they are relevant, and matter to anyone outside your own mind.  But without further ado, here is Digging Deeper's first blog entry.

Am I an adult? I am 25, married, and in graduate school (seems grown-up enough right?)

Despite this I feel as though the modern sense of what adulthood is and when it begins is an ever evolving catch 22 for those of us in our mid-late twenties, especially for new college grads. I think there is a distinct difference between being an adult through the tasks/behaviors you are involved in (getting married, working a full-time job, taking responsibility) and how the world and society views you. You can be as adult like as you want with how you interact with the world, but there are times society can completely discount those adult behaviors due to appearance. So I think the second distinction is where I hit a snag. It seems to be almost universal that no matter the situation I am in, I'm continually "the young guy" or get comments that are equally invalidating. I am 25, not 16, and while it may be polite to point out my youthful appearance, it makes it difficult to be seen as a professional who is competent and knows what he is doing.  I feel like 30 is the new 20. It has never been so "in" to be young (even when you are not young, I'm looking at you Joan Rivers), yet on the flip side being young in American culture gets you less respect thanks to the American cultural heuristic that tells us older = good/better. At what point does the "young guy" treatment end?  I feel as though you aren't seen as an "adult" in an job/career until you are into your 40s, you are an adult when you take on real life responsibilities like getting married and having kids around 25-30, and you are an adult and can kill people at 18 according to the government. Having different social lenses with which to view adulthood makes the internal feeling of being an adult a moving target. In a lot of ways there is always another step to be "more" adult, and finding that adult "identity" has been nearly impossible as I have gotten older. However, none of this matters if I don't believe in how I view myself. I am an adult, but does that make me an adult? It sure does. The self-fulfilling prophecy will only continue until I accept the part of being an adult, whether I believe others see me that way or not. The social lense is a nice barometer of truth, but at the end of the day you are what you eat (or for this metaphor you are who you eat...errr rather you are the person that you accept you are).

 I will leave this post with some lyrics from a band I respect a great deal and a final thought:

"it seems my life is always under par...When does my life become my own?"

Am I an adult? I love God, Love my wife, care for those around me, and take life seriously...is that enough?