Every New Year and every birthday used to come with a long list of wishes. I wanted to grow up, become better, and believe the next year would surely be brighter than the last.
This year was the first time I truly felt that I had gotten older.
It isn’t just about age. It’s the accumulation of roles. There are more and more identities attached to me now, and little by little I’ve started to feel that I’m no longer living only for myself. The old backpack still looks good, but it makes me walk more slowly. Mentally, what I want now is stability in both work and life, with progress made from a steady footing. And in the world around me, siblings, classmates, and coworkers are all rushing toward marriage, which suddenly makes me feel like I’ve also reached the age when people start talking seriously about settling down.
At the same time, something else has been quietly changing with the years: a person’s way of seeing things. Ideas about life, about value, about the world itself.
I’m not as impulsive as I used to be. I’ve gradually learned to endure, to understand, and to let go. I’m no longer as fearless about trying things boldly; sometimes the extra calmness costs me inspiration. I don’t throw the word “morality” at other people as easily anymore, and instead try to discipline myself in silence. But the principles I once thought made me upright and uncompromising—though I still hold on to them—the boundary has gone from sharp to blurred. There are things I know I absolutely shouldn’t do, things I know are wrong even in the worst case. And yet, when difficulty shows up, and I can squeeze out a few barely passable excuses, I find myself giving tacit permission anyway.
I once wanted to build pure software, to create pure social value. I looked down on unfair competition, on bundled installations, on junk promotion, and on all those money-driven tricks. But when the boss actually starts talking to you about going public, about shares and stock, that excitement rises straight from your gut and floods your brain. In that moment, it suddenly feels like the company should get listed by whatever route gets it there fastest, and if other people can speculate, why shouldn’t we?
That was the mirror I needed. It made me see that for all my appearance of idealism, temptation still dragged me toward money just the same.
There were certain phrases I used to hate hearing—things like “you get used to it” or “there’s nothing you can do, everyone does it this way.” Somehow, without noticing, I’ve become one of the people saying them.
If someone had asked me before whether I was fighting for my ideals, I would have answered without hesitation: yes. Today, there’s a trace of doubt. If they asked whether I still should fight for them, there would be another trace of hesitation.
Chasing ideals has a cost. Who is paying for mine?
Maybe my youth.
But when I think about it carefully, it may also be costing the youth of my friends, and the years of my elders. And it didn’t start today—it’s already been going on for some time. On top of that, my own youth is visibly running out. The price is not small.
Today I listened to Fusion’s Adult World, and as the song played I looked back on four years of work, at the wedding invitations arriving one after another from friends around me, at my future, at the people beside me, and then at myself as I am now.
It left me with every feeling at once.
I hope that after today, I can still feel that I am young. That is much better than merely feeling that I once was.
And if all I can say is that I used to be young... well, I suppose that is still slightly better than feeling I was never young at all.
Adult World
Lyrics: Tao Bushing
Music: Tao BushingI remember the emotions of the past, like a gentle wind
Quietly blowing away the weight that comes with growing up
Sometimes I was impulsive too, and only after trying did I learn pain
Only then could I move forward, inch by inchAfter going through a little feeling, after restraining some impulse
The uncertain me learned how to be tolerantI keep meeting familiar and unfamiliar faces
Searching, amid all the busyness, for the starting point of happiness
Sometimes tired, sometimes faintly resentful
Trying to teach myself to adapt a littleBut too many people have changed, wearing faces like masks
Smiling stubbornly, unwilling to say much more
In the end I realized: this is the adult world
And suddenly understood I had already been in it for yearsI too have gradually changed, wearing a face like a mask
Smiling stubbornly, unwilling to say much more
In the end I realized: this is the adult world
And suddenly understood I had already been in it for years