Published via Ecency

As a little girl, I believed adults knew absolutly everything...
Not some things.
Completly Everything.

I thought my parents had a solution for every problem... teachers had all the knowledge in the world, and older people simply moved through life without fear or uncertainty....

Whenever there was a problem, I just believed there was always an adult somewhere who knew exactly what to do... It really was a very comforting belief at the time and Whenever I was worried about school, friendships, or the future, I would look at the adults around me and think... One day I'll grow up and everything will make sense....

I mostly imagined adulthood as a destination where confusion disappeared and confidence finally arrived but then I grew up and slowly discovered that the adults I looked up to were trying to figure things out as they went along.

I remember the first time I noticed it... I was old enough to understand some of the conversations happening around me and i saw my mother sitting quietly one evening with a worried expression on her face whilst She was trying to make an important decision and for the first time I realized she didn't immediately know the answer....
That honestly surprised me.

This was the woman who always seemed strong, capable, and certain.
If she could be unsure, then maybe being an adult wasn't what I thought it was.

As the years passed, I noticed it everywhere.
Friends who appeared successful were secretly struggling with self-doubt.
Parents were making sacrifices they never talked about.
Professionals who looked confident were sometimes just doing their best and hoping things worked out and even people I considered role models admitted they didn't have everything figured out.

At first, this realization was disappointing because I felt as though a curtain had been pulled back on a carefully constructed illusion But eventually, I came to appreciate it...

Because the truth was far more beautiful and it was that Adults aren't people who have all the answers.

They're people who keep moving forward despite not having all the answers...
They're people who make decisions while carrying uncertainty...
People who worry, fail, learn, adapt, and try again...
People who are still growing...
Just like everyone else...

That realization also made me kinder because When I was younger, I judged people more harshly because I assumed they should know better but now I understand that most of us are doing the best we can with the information, resources, and experiences we have at the time.

We're all learning...
We're all making mistakes....
We're all figuring out life one day at a time and honestly, there's something comforting about that.

The little girl in me thought adulthood was about becoming perfect but the woman I am today knows it's actually about becoming resilient.... so the childhood belief I'm glad I unlearned is the idea that adults have all the answers Because once I let go of that belief, I stopped expecting perfection from myself and from others.

And that made life a little easier and made me more human