Growing Up at Any Age

Growing up isn’t an age; it’s a recurring software update. A witty, brutal look at maturity, messiness, and everything in between.

There’s an actual 1994 book called “Growing Up at Any Age: How to Know When True Adulthood Arrives” by Steven K. Baum, which argues that emotional growth can happen at any stage of life and even offers self-tests on maturity. So we’re not crazy; the theme is legit.

That said, this piece is not a review.
This is the field report from someone who’s tried growing up… several times… and keeps renewing the trial version.

Growing Up at Any Age

(Without Killing the Child Who’s Still Running the Show)

Somewhere in my twenties I thought, “By 40, I’ll be sorted.”

Then 40 arrived like a badly planned surprise party.
The only gift I got was the realization that “sorted” is a myth and adulthood is mostly just Googling things and pretending you aren’t tired.

We grow older automatically.
Growing up is optional.

And apparently, according to a whole field of psychology, this “growing up” thing doesn’t have a deadline. Erik Erikson’s famous stages of development literally extend well into adulthood, including a middle-age phase with the charming existential question: “Can I make my life count?”

Translation:
“You’ve done the EMI, the job, the kids, the chaos… now what?”

So yes, you can grow up at any age.
The bigger question is: do you want to?
And if yes, how do you do it without turning into a joyless, over-optimized productivity robot who forgot how to laugh?

Let’s talk.

The Lie We Got Sold About “Growing Up”

As kids we thought “grown-ups” were a separate species. They knew stuff. They had money. They didn’t cry over small things. They drank tea and watched news channels voluntarily.

Now we know the truth:
Most adults are just children with better phones and worse knees.

We were told growing up means:

Get serious
Get responsible
Stop being “silly”
Choose stability over curiosity
Be “practical” (code for: ignore your inner self, we have bills to pay)

But the older I get, the more it feels like real growing up is the exact opposite:
Not killing the kid inside you, just finally agreeing to co-parent with them.

George Bernard Shaw allegedly said we don’t grow old and stop playing; we grow old because we stop playing.

That line hurts a little more when you look at your calendar and realize the only “play” you’ve had in the last month was changing fonts on a PPT.

Work–Life Balance: The PowerPoint Myth

Let’s address the corporate elephant in the room: work–life balance.

We put it on slides.
We nod when HR talks about it.
We clap at offsites when someone says “family first”.

Then we reply to emails from the washroom and review spreadsheets during our kids’ annual day.

Here’s a fun experiment:
Do a time audit of your last seven days. Nothing fancy. Just write down where your hours actually went.

Not where your values went.
Where your time went.

Suddenly “family”, “health”, “reading”, “learning”, “inner peace” — those things you say matter — are sitting in the corner with 2.5 leftover hours and a packet of stale biscuits.

The grown-up move is not a dramatic life reset.
It’s something painfully unglamorous: admit the disconnect between what you say you value and what you actually prioritize.

Growing up at any age might just be this:
aligning your calendar with your conscience.
One small slot at a time.
No Instagram reel. No TED talk. Just quiet adjustments.

Goals vs Achievements: The Spreadsheet of Our Delusions

You know what we’re all world-class at?
Declaring goals we have zero intention of restructuring our life for.

“I’ll get fit this year.”
“I’ll spend more time with family.”
“I’ll learn something new.”
“I’ll start that side project.”

Then we sacrifice these at the altar of “meetings that could’ve been emails”.

We love goals because they make us feel like future-us will rescue present-us.
Future-us, poor fellow, is already overloaded.

There’s a quote widely attributed to C.S. Lewis: “You’re never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.”

Beautiful line.
But here’s the grown-up twist:
It’s not about setting more goals.
It’s about setting fewer, honest ones — and then cutting away the junk that blocks them.

Growing up at 25, 40, or 60 looks weirdly similar:

You stop lying to yourself about what you’ll “do when things calm down”.
You accept that things don’t calm down; you just decide what to drop.

Real adulthood is not “having more goals”.
It’s having the courage to say,

“These three matter. The rest is vanity, fear or FOMO.”

Defining Success Without LinkedIn Holding the Pen

Society:
“Success is money, title, car, school for kids, foreign trip, and occasionally showing up as a ‘thought leader’ on LinkedIn.”

Your inner self:
“I just want to wake up not dreading my own life.”

Psychologists talk about generativity — that midlife urge to contribute, mentor, build something that outlasts you, instead of just hoarding achievements.

In plain language:
We reach a point where we want meaning more than medals.

That’s usually when you start asking:

“If my child watched my life on mute, what would they think I value?”
“If this job vanished tomorrow, would I still know who I am?”
“Am I building a life or just upgrading my lifestyle?”

Growing up at any age might simply mean you stop outsourcing your definition of success to society, WhatsApp groups, or alumni WhatsApp “success stories”.

You define it.
Then you quietly live it.
Dark humor optional. Sanity compulsory.

Realising Your Inner Self (Without Going Full Ashram Mode)

Every “find yourself” message online looks like:
“Quit your job, move to the mountains, journal at sunrise, drink herbal tea, come back with wisdom and a podcast.”

Meanwhile you are like:
“I have EMIs, children, and a boss who thinks ‘quick call?’ is a personality trait.”

Here’s the less dramatic version:
Your “inner self” is not hiding in Rishikesh. It’s hiding under your roles.

Parent
Manager
Spouse
Child
Friend
Provider
Problem-solver

Strip those labels for a minute and ask:
Who am I when nobody needs anything from me?

Uncomfortable question.
Very grown-up question.

You may discover:
You actually like quiet.
You miss drawing.
You love teaching.
You hate your own phone.
You enjoy being useful, but not being used.

You don’t need a sabbatical to start listening.
Sometimes you just need 30 quiet minutes where you’re not performing for anyone — not kids, not colleagues, not Instagram.

The child in you wants to play.
The adult in you wants peace.
Growing up at any age is finding a way to let them both win on the same day.

When to Slow Down (Before Life Does It For You)

Body has a funny way of sending meeting invites:

Headaches.
Snappish mood.
Sunday dread starting Friday.
Scrolling in bed at 2am, dead tired but unable to log off.

That’s not “modern life”.
That’s your system flashing low-battery warnings.

Psychology doesn’t treat adulthood as one flat line. After a point the big question shifts from “Who am I?” to “Is this all there is, or do I make my life count?”(Wikipedia)

If you ignore that question long enough, you don’t just feel tired.
You feel hollow.

Slowing down is not a luxury spa plan.
It’s a grown-up survival strategy.

Maybe you:

Take one evening a week with no screens, no productivity.
Drop one commitment that’s pure ego, zero joy.
Say no to a “great opportunity” that’s wrong timing, wrong cost.

Not because you’ve become weak.
Because you’ve finally realized time is a currency you will run out of — and you no longer want to spend it like a drunk billionaire.

Advice to My Children (And to the Kid Inside Me)

If I had to sit my kids down and give them one line about growing up, it wouldn’t be:
“Study hard and settle down.”

It would be closer to:

“Don’t rush to become an adult who’s forgotten how to be a person.”

I’d tell them:

Grow skills, yes — but also grow a spine.
Learn to earn — but also learn to walk away.
Be kind — but not at the cost of self-respect.
Take responsibility — but don’t confuse suffering with depth.

And to the kid inside me, the one still cracking jokes in serious meetings and wanting to escape endless Excel sheets, I’d say:
“Relax, you don’t have to die for me to grow up. Just sit next to me. We’ll figure it out together.”

Because that’s the core of this whole thing:
Growing up at any age is integration, not execution.

It’s where your experience, your scars, your curiosity, your stupidities, your wisdom, your humour – all sit at the same table and stop fighting for dominance.

So… Can You Grow Up at Any Age?

Yes.
You can be 22 and deeply mature.
You can be 55 and emotionally stuck in high school.

The book I mentioned earlier literally argues that emotional growth can happen at any age, and that true adulthood is more about maturity than chronology.(Goodreads) Psychology backs that up: development isn’t a one-time upgrade; it’s a lifelong software update, with occasional crashes.

Growing up at any age is not:

Losing your spark
Becoming “serious”
Turning cynical
Closing doors

It’s:

Calling out your own nonsense
Owning your choices
Redefining success on your terms
Protecting the child in you while finally being the adult they needed

You don’t do it with one big decision.
You do it with hundreds of small, slightly uncomfortable, deeply honest ones.

One Last Thing Before You Go

If any of this felt a bit too close to home, great. That means you’re not dead inside.

Growing up at any age doesn’t start with a vision board.
It starts with a sentence:

“Okay… enough. I’m done sleepwalking through my own life.”

From there, you pick one thing:

One boundary.
One honest goal.
One quiet hour.
One conversation with your kid.
One thing you’ll stop pretending about.

That’s it.
That’s the grown-up move.

And the child in you?
Give them a day off from carrying your unresolved nonsense.
Let them play.

You’re never too old for either.

Categories: : Career Counselling, Elevate _ Professional, IMAGOFY, Public Speaking, Soft Skills