I used to hate olives, along with a lot of other things. Peppers. Beans. Blue cheese. And I used to tell everyone about how much I disliked stuff.

But then I grew up. You don’t have to eat olives if you don’t want. But if you restrict your life to your little pre-approved list of acceptable foods, you’re missing out.

Life is short. Way too short. You don’t want to discover how delicious a dirty martini with blue cheese olives is when you’re old.

It even goes beyond this.

Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. Smarter than doctors, scientists, and engineers. Definitely smarter than whatever the political or ideological “other side” is.

It’s ruining our society. When George Carlin did his bit about “how stupid the average person is”, he forgot to mention how 99% of us assume we skew into the “smarter than average” side.

I can’t have conversations with people I used to respect, relatives, old friends, or even casual acquaintances without everyone blathering on about how stupid these people are or that group is. I hate it.

Yup. The realization that we’re all just making it up as we go is when it happens. Welcome to adulting.

Yep. I sneezed and now my back hurts.

Yes and No. 48.

There was never a horizon or dividing line I crossed between youth and adult. It just happened.

I’m still the same person I was when I was 10/20/30/40. Still like cool things, still confused about why we’re all here.

Other than my body getting real creaky and doing all kinds of weird old things, the only real difference between youth and adult is the realization that this very thread addresses. We’re all just making it up as we go. There’s no such thing as “adult”. There’s no Council of Super-Smart People running the world.

The only thing that makes you an adult is the realization that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. That you have to be the super-smart person running things.