The definitive sign of a settled adult isn't certainty about what they want, it's the absence of panic when they don't yet know - Silicon Canals

"The cultural script reads: a real adult has decided. Decided on the partner, the job, the politics, the position on every cultural skirmish you scroll past on a Tuesday. Indecision reads as weakness, drift, or some failure to launch."

"Most of us were sold a version of adulthood where, at some specifiable age, the fog clears. You know what you want. You know who you are. The career, the partner, the city, the answer to the dinner-party question about your five-year plan - all of it lands into place like a Tetris piece."

"What they have is a tolerance for not knowing. Not indifference. Not paralysis. Tolerance."

"The first one is content. The second one is capacity. Most adults will cycle through the content many times across a life - different careers, different relationships, different cities, different versions of who they think they are."

Major life transitions often lead to uncertainty about the next steps. Many people believe adulthood brings clarity, but most do not experience this certainty. Instead, true maturity involves a tolerance for not knowing and accepting the process of figuring things out. Society often equates certainty with maturity, but this confuses the ability to know what one wants with the capacity to be okay while in a state of uncertainty. Many adults will navigate various life changes, but their capacity to handle uncertainty remains constant.

Read at Silicon Canals