5 Changing Perspectives That Show You've Become An Adult

That's when you start to really examine the way you acted and the beliefs that you awkwardly farted out during a time when you were still just learning the most basic education that school systems have to offer. You think of your old worldviews and philosophies, backed by exactly zero experience, and you cringe. What you wouldn't give to travel back in time and spank your own ass, screaming, "Eat my hate-spank, past me!" until you were dumped, cackling with mad laughter, into a padded room. In 20 years, you'll do the same when you think about your current self. Don't freak out -- that's a good thing. It means you're growing.

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The problem that I (and many other people) have is that we tend to hold on to those ridiculous, embarrassing times and beat ourselves up over it. That's not healthy. If we don't let go of that, it can eventually decline into full-blown depression, and even further: self-hate. Unfortunately, letting go of the past isn't something that you can do by making a conscious decision, any more than Elvis can decide to stop being dead.

Now don't get me wrong. If there's some sort of psychological benefit to telling yourself "I'm no longer going to let my past stress me out," then by all means do that. But for most of us, letting go just sort of happens as you make peace with the fact that, yes, you used to be the type of person you'd personally throw rocks at. But not anymore.

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That doesn't mean that you forget the past. Far from it. Remembering those mistakes and embarrassments is a huge part in keeping your current self from slipping back into "dumb douchebag" mode. You just stop letting it dictate how you feel today. Because the longer you stew on that shit, the harder it is to get control of the reins and steer life the way you want it to go, and occasionally stop to feed it hay because life is a horse.

Saying "You start double thinking your actions" sounds a little weird at first because you learn to weigh consequences at a pretty young age. "If I touch the stove, it will burn me. If I punch Dad in the dick, I'll get a Tombstone Pile Driver." The difference between a child and an adult doing this, though, is that as a kid, the consequences are generally pointed inward. What happens to me if I shit on the teacher's desk?

You know you've made a huge step toward adulthood when you start regularly thinking about how your words and actions affect other people. Especially when dealing with anger.

No, you're probably not going to master this because you're not Gandhi, and there are going to be situations that are well beyond your means to control. But under most circumstances, we're able to see in advance how our actions are going to make the situation better or worse because our experiences have taught us enough about human nature to fairly accurately predict the next step in the Clusterfuck Dance.

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That's why I know 50-year-old people who I'll never label as adults. Those are the ones who know the steps and outcomes, but they use that knowledge as a weapon. You've met plenty of them -- people who know exactly what button to push in order to suck you into a full-blown, rage-fueled argument. They use their experiences for aggression, to get that adrenaline fix that comes with anger and confrontation. Those aren't the actions of an adult. They're the actions of a temperamental, selfish child. And they must be spanked accordingly.

That's why it's up to you as an adult to learn how to let certain things go. Like smartass remarks that serve no other purpose than to goad you into a confrontation. Some dumbass trying to argue with you about something you have 100 times more knowledge and experience with. Someone trying to move in on your clearly marked gang territory.

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Of course, you could take that a step further if you go the opposite direction: knowing that your actions, while having no benefit to you, will help someone else. Giving a couple of dollars to a good charity. Helping an old lady with her groceries. Having pity sex with that same old lady. It's still double thinking, just in a way that non-adults aren't normally known for. "This day sucked. All I want to do is go home and shoot up some sweet, sweet heroin. Wait, that person obviously needs some assistance. The dragon can wait a few more minutes."

Ladies, you'll have to pardon me for a second on this one, because I see this far more frequently in guys. At the very least, it might help you understand why some dude in your life is an aggressive, destructive cockface.

On a physical scale, there's a phase that boys go through where they get destructive urges, like vandalism. Maybe it's nothing big, like soaping windows on Halloween or smashing toys with hammers. Maybe it's something sociopathic, like throwing bricks through windows or smashing dogs with hammers. But the urge is there, and mastering that urge is a learned process. In those real-world cases, the kid has parents, teachers, police, and peers to step in and put a stop to it. They're taught consequences, and they eventually shape those lessons into engrained morals ... if we're lucky. If not, just get used to the idea of addressing letters to your son using a state-issued set of ID numbers.

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The more common and potentially dangerous problem I see today is in trolling and griefing online. No, it's not the same as physically breaking something, but that's kind of the problem. It seems like a victimless crime to the person doing the trolling. But put the right troll in the right message board or comment section and he can completely destroy any chance of discussion -- he has effectively broken the system for no other reason than personal amusement. It's ego masturbation. It happened so much at Popular Science that they shut down their comment section. It was as if a thousand voices cried out the word "fag" and were suddenly silenced.

Since it takes place online and the kid is safely hidden behind a nickname, there is no face for him to look at -- no means of building empathy or regret. To him, a person is just text on a screen. There's no adult to punish him ... no personal, respected peers to step up and discourage him with face punching and the threat of impending wedgies. Hell, if anything, trolling is often rewarded by other people hitting a "like" button on whatever "here's a picture of my lunch" site they might be on. Because of that, it becomes totally up to the individual to realize all on his own that the behavior is horseshit.

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How long does that take? I'm 39, and I still do it (albeit to corporate Twitter accounts).

Trolling just happens to be a good example, not the point. What I'm saying is that there has to be a point where you get control over those destructive urges, no matter what form they take. We give children more slack in this department because they're just kids and don't know any better. But if you don't get a handle on it by the time you get out into the real world, your excuse evaporates and we start putting motherfuckers in jail.

It's the same with any responsibility. Even at a crappy job, you start to view menial tasks as stepping stones to something better. The more responsibility you take on, the more you grow in money and power. Yes, you're just packing boxes at the local black market baby warehouse, but do it better than everyone else, and now you're supervising other baby packers. Supervise better than the other supervisors, and now you're managing. Manage better than the other managers, and now you are the king of Cuba. Or whatever they have as a ruler there. I don't know politics very well, but I'm pretty sure that's the way it works.

This is a perspective that changes out of necessity because if you looked at every responsibility as a personal torture, you'd let your life go to hell and/or go insane. And putting a finish line on an otherwise shitty chore isn't just some bullshit optimistic hippie talk. It's a direct answer to the question "Why am I doing this?" If the answer is ever "Because I have to," maybe it's time to re-evaluate the task or your outlook on life, because one of them is a problem.

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What really scares me is that I easily get a dozen emails and messages a year from young people telling me that they were about to or are going to commit ... um ... bunnycide (Christ, this is hard). And there is no way for me to convey to them the amount of people they're about to fuck over by doing that because in their current state of mind, they feel genuinely alone. They can't see the chain reaction of guilt, anger, sadness, and regret that mushrooms out like a nuclear explosion when something like that happens. And they definitely don't understand that no amount of reassurance in their note will convince a single person that it wasn't their fault.

They don't realize that every person they've spoken to feels the crushing grip of failure every time they think of what happened. "I know I could have said or done something to prevent it. I know he liked monkeys. I could have bought him a whole herd of monkeys. Wait, do monkeys come in herds? Let me Google that ... no, that's stupid, I'm calling them herds. I could have bought him a herd of monkeys."

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I fully realize that plenty of adults go through this -- it's not a teenagers-only deal. The difference between an adult and a child in these situations is that a kid is used to being taken care of. If the parents notice him acting weird, they can step in and get him the help he needs. But when you're an adult, all of that is on your shoulders, which means you have to recognize that the situation isn't normal, and you have to get up and pursue a cure yourself. Because adults get shit fixed, including themselves.

An adult lives, goddamnit.

John is a columnist right here at Cracked with a new article every Thursday. You can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.