Growing up, many of us held the belief that life was only going to become more simple with time. Somehow we expected that our personal insecurities, and our fears about the future were going to be left behind with our childhood selves. One of the greatest surprises of quarter life is that this is not the case, and that many of our childhood inhibitions follow us not only into adulthood, but throughout our entire lives. This has the unfortunate consequence of stunting our psychological growth. Have you ever entertained the thought that, although technically speaking you are a grown-up, deep inside you still feel like a kid? Its either a sign that you haven't adequately delt with those inhibitions...or else this is what being an adult is always going to feel like. I've only been here for a few years. For me, it's still too early to tell.

When I turned 25 an interesting thing happened to my perception of the world. Up until that point the people around me were neatly divided into groups: you had the children, the teenagers, the pre-adults, the adults and then the elderly. But this quickly changed. All of a sudden everywhere I looked I saw nothing but children. Some bigger, some smaller, some younger, some older, but in the end they were all the same young souls stuck in their "pretend" adult bodies. It was a revelation that our internal reality has nothing to do with what is going on outside. This was a hard pill to swallow. One may feel unready for the wrinkles and responsibilites of adulthood, but time does not move according to our needs. It moves simply. It moves always, whether we're ready or not.