Being a Grownup

I used to be one of those kids who did extra credit to get straight A-pluses and actually tried to win the science fair.  As I grew older and went to college, I wasn't always responsible but I did always know that I wanted to work.  Before I turned 22, I had managed a team of 50-year-olds, met some serious operational metrics, and been part of a firing decision.  A decade later, I own a home and 2 graduate degrees, and still, secretly, I've never really felt completely grown-up.  I still do things like fly kites, float paper planes out a second-story window at a wheelchair-bound friend below, drop my mike and run during a bad karaoke performance, acquire a suite of crabbing gear with very poor ROI, jump off a cliff achieving a badly bruised tailbone.

When I was younger and looked at people my age now, they seemed so old.  They had this seriousness, this gravitas, about them that I can't but help think now was either a complete facade or the result of an extremely dull inner life.  Now that I'm at the age of being grownup, I look around and all the people who seem like big deals are almost never the ones who are.

So I have to ask myself - what does it mean to be a grownup?  Is it about responsibility, accountability, gravity, maturity, all the words normally associated with adulthood.  The times I've felt most grownup:

• Standing up and defending someone on my team
• Changing the tone and tenor of a conversation going awry
• Reaching out to individuals who look lost in a social setting
• Speaking up in a new group or high-powered setting 
• Telling the truth when it's hard 
• Saying I'm sorry when I don't have to
• Calling my mom even when I'm busy
• Stepping out of the rat race to go back to school
• Going to conferences where I don't know anyone
• Treating powerful people like they're human beings
• Backing off an argument for the right reasons
• Rising above the group dynamics and telling a better story
• Taking a personal risk to help someone junior or lower-status
• Being my very self in every situation
• Sharing the lessons learned from my mistakes
• Initiating the first conversation
• Carving out time by saying 'no'
• Giving genuine compliments based on real noticings
• Saying "I love you" first
• Casting out shame from my life
• Responding well and fairly to the anger of others 
• Being unadulteratedly happy for those who achieve what I want
• Changing the small talk
• Asking for help

They seem to be more related to choice, risk-taking, empathy, being human, understanding and owning your emotions, questioning the first premise, changing the working premise.  It's about making that mental pivot, taking that left turn, and owning the bringing along of those around you.  It seems like being a grownup is very close to the essence of being human - being the deus ex machina of our own lives.  It's not something you can do all the time, you have to constantly work it, and it's always an achievement when you get there.  This life thing never seems to get easy, does it.