On Adulthood…

These days I'm reading Upstream by Mary Oliver. One of the seven new books I mentioned in a post a few days back. Have read only a few pages so far, but even in those few, she keeps talking about her life being her own, that she made it whatever it became. I found this particular section illuminating.

I’ve always struggled with the thoughts of being childish versus being a grown-up. Yes, even in the fourth decade of my life :) I look back at situations and think I could have done better, not given in to emotions or could have done something opposite of what I eventually did. Over the years, that control over my feelings somehow became the definition of being an adult. But is that so?

“And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life.”

Isn’t this the very definition of being an adult? That we stop being children when we decide that now onwards, our lives are going to be the result of our actions, our reactions? And that we will not be laying the responsibility of whatever life we get on someone else’s door?

What do you think?