As children we felt powerless. We hadn’t received full agency over our lives and someone else was making decisions for us. We dreamt of super hero’s and they became part of our imaginative play as we lived vicariously through them.
Through several rites of passage we become adults. As our physical selves grow into adulthood, we need to bring our emotional selves along with us. I think for most people it’s a gradual process but for some reason I remember making the choice.
I remember looking around and thinking, “ok, I’m actually the adult, now it’s time I started acting like one”. It’s taken me years to figure out what is involved in adulting aside from just paying bills and doing all of the laundry. Truth be told, I’m still learning.
Seth Godin wrote a short and excellent blog on tantrums the other day. Most of my friends who read his blog daily shared it on Facebook and I have gone back and read it several times. I recommend you do also.
In that blog he said, “Toddlers have tantrums. Adults should solve problems.”
In 2 sentences he said what I’ve been thinking since I decided to become an adult but have never been able to really nail down…that guy is a genius.
Tantrums are not at all helpful.
Let’s take a moment to define a tantrum. It could be a temper tantrum, as Seth is speaking to in his blog, but really it is any moment you are having an intense emotional reaction about what’s unfolding.
Pouting is a type of tantrum.
Adults solve problems. They look for solutions.
Somehow we don’t fully claim our agency to solve problems when we march into adulthood.
Somehow we remain feeling powerless and instead of dreaming about superheroes and playing with our super powers, we become victims. We feel stuck and trapped in situations and we don’t ever see that everything is figureoutable.
There is always a way, there is always another chance, there is always progression if you just keep moving forward.
It happens one step at a time.
We have the power to change our lives and to make the world a better place for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for people who we don’t even know yet …we simply need to step into it.
We need to be the adults we have grown up to become. Once we all do that, just imagine the places we can go, the problems we can solve, and the things we can do together.