Nick Bradbury, in a great article comparing programming to life:

I realized that the people in charge are as clueless as the rest of us. Like our software, our society just kind of happened over the years and it’s always on the verge of coming tumbling down. Nobody really knows what they’re doing or what they’re talking about.

There’s no magical moment you grow up, understand everything, and become “good” at life. We can become better at the things we’ve experienced, but we’re effectively a kid again whenever something new and scary comes our way.

There’s a passage I love from Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane:

Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.

We’re all just stumbling around in our own way, learning as we go, and yet somehow humans have managed to survive for the last 200,000 years. I always find that comforting whenever I’m worried about making the wrong decision. To quote The Ocean again, “You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.” Just do the best you can.